The reason this essay exists is that I have heard dozens of people over the years say something like “Yeah, so I keep asking people to explain what Circling is, and everybody keeps refusing and claiming it’s impossible and that you have to experience it to understand and honestly it’s soured me on the whole thing.”
This is great! I often fumble/ bumble when people ask me what circling is and think i'll probably do a much better job of explaining now. Thanks for writing.
In hopefully the spirit of Circling (as someone who has admittedly has never done it):
Some part of me rebels hard against glossing the abstraction/sensation axis as "worse"/"better", and whines "but sometimes, maybe most of the time, abstraction is Good Actually!"
But even that part must admit that "worse"/"better" is a totally reasonable *abstraction* for "less/more in the spirit of the frame under discussion" lol
Yeah, to be crystal clear: I think that Circling has plenty of room for abstraction, and stories, and models, and complicated thoughts that take multiple minutes to get out. I think these things aren't *central* to Circling, but I think good mature Circling can include and metabolize them.
But if someone's just trying to locate Circling *at all,* like just trying to figure out what it even is and how it's different from regular conversation, then I think steering away from those things *at first* goes a long way. =)
This is great! I often fumble/ bumble when people ask me what circling is and think i'll probably do a much better job of explaining now. Thanks for writing.
In hopefully the spirit of Circling (as someone who has admittedly has never done it):
Some part of me rebels hard against glossing the abstraction/sensation axis as "worse"/"better", and whines "but sometimes, maybe most of the time, abstraction is Good Actually!"
But even that part must admit that "worse"/"better" is a totally reasonable *abstraction* for "less/more in the spirit of the frame under discussion" lol
Yeah, to be crystal clear: I think that Circling has plenty of room for abstraction, and stories, and models, and complicated thoughts that take multiple minutes to get out. I think these things aren't *central* to Circling, but I think good mature Circling can include and metabolize them.
But if someone's just trying to locate Circling *at all,* like just trying to figure out what it even is and how it's different from regular conversation, then I think steering away from those things *at first* goes a long way. =)