So, I have recently been examining some of the truly astonishing underpinnings of language and human communication. These relate to topics like indirection (using language ambiguously to produce results that declarations cannot accomplish… or introducing ambiguity where a clear statement is otherwise expected), ambiguity (cloud-like dimensions where many possibilities are sustained, or ‘clarity’ is sacrificed), and disambiguation (the power of collapsing a cloud of possibilities into a declaration or assertion).

If you reflect on these things, you will notice them everywhere in common and abstract/academic discussions or arguments. Which is … disorienting. But also provides useful insight into the origins and natures of many aspects of human communication, motivation, revulsion, etc… in popular and intellectual communication behavior.

But there is another problem here.

The purpose of »abstracting a normative or ‘general’ criteria for evaluating propositions, statements, or indirection… is a trap. What is actually going on is relatively unique to the contexts and participants — if we abstract those away (i.e. throw away the context)… there is no context, and the statements are like ghosts or demons floating in a contextless ‘assertion/denial’ dimension.

Yet they can »appear authoritative, and there is the crux of the danger.

I also was rather disturbed to discover something that is at once common and personal. I am an intellectual, but I am not merely an intellectual. I am also highly emotionally sensitive.

One day I noticed, consciously, that when I feel emotionally vulnerable or threatened, I become ‘more intellectual’. In other words, I retreat into conceptual and linguistic behaviors that distance me from my emotions. These produce other results, for example, ‘appearing intelligent’ to others involved.

And then, thinking back into my own developmental epochs… I saw that I was more commonly rewarded for expressions of intelligence, particularly abstract intelligence, than I was for being sensitive. In fact, I was often punished or criticized for being sensitive, and only rarely punished for expressions of abstract or intellectual prowess.

So I learned, at least in part, to ‘protect’ my sensitivity by departing into intellect. And I still do this. But now, I have the possibility of being aware of it. And while this doesn’t resolve the problem or its history, it does, at least, present me with the option to make another choice…