I'm really struggling to understand what is different about this sort of naturalist behavior? Like, what would a person who studies a SIM card ejector for its contours do differently, either with the ejector itself or with other objects?
Would they use the SIM card ejector to poke holes in plastic food packaging or potatoes before cooking, instead of a fork? Would they use it to scratch themselves in a hard-to-reach spot? If you have one that fits around your finger, wear it as a ring and spin around the pointy bit? Look through the hole? Use it as a metal conduit if you're out of wires in an apocalypse situation? Would they use a paperclip to eject SIM cards?
Because if so...that doesn't seem like something you need to work on. I do all of those things with random objects all the time. Not specifically SIM card ejectors, but paperclips and washers and taken-apart-mechanical-pencils and the like. It would be significantly more effort to actually think that this particular metal object is exclusively "for" ejecting SIM cards, rather than simply what it is designed to be the best at. Anyone who's stuck thinking about objects in terms of rules could just stop doing that, and it would just mean not putting active effort into it. It doesn't take active effort to stop, that's the default.
If those aren't the sort of things you're trying to do, then I didn't really understand the post and could probably use some more examples.
The SIM card ejector tool is not, I think, where the important stuff happens.
The SIM card ejector tool is something like a bicep curl (metaphorically), and the important stuff is being able to carry your groceries in from the car and being able to pull yourself up to escape a burning building.
Like, there's a mental motion of escaping your narrow preconceptions that is *usually* not necessary, because the world and your life are built around narrow preconceptions that usually fit pretty well.
But when it matters (that your preexisting conceptual categories are broken, and driving you to disaster) it tends to matter A LOT. Like, being unable to get outside of your perspective on your spouse's behavior, such that you keep interpreting them in ways that are corroding your marriage.
"Increase your mental flexibility and box-breaking as a matter of habit" is like wearing your seatbelt—most of the time it confers zero benefit, but the habit of doing it means that when it DOES matter, you don't forget to/aren't incapable.
Once I reoriented to for-ness as a relation and not an inherent property, life became way more fun and less depressing. I guess I could also say that I felt more powerful and less put-upon as well. I really resonated with the quote from Logan feeling disgust at the thought of leaving/denying such an orientation.
I'm looking for a sharper idea of what you're saying, because I see two perspectives in your post. I'd call one a hacker mindset, where you look at a thing in terms of affordances. For example, a coffee mug could be useful for any purpose that requires a vessel with a thermally isolated handle, or a thing the size of your fist that you can grip tightly with your fingers, or that has whatever color or pattern this particular mug has on it. The other perspective is what I think of as more of a core naturalist mindset, where you notice the thing in terms of its precise contours and immediate sensory properties (I think it's not coincidental that I find it harder to put these observations into specific words).
Do you think of both of those as true to your point? Do you think they're even qualitatively different?
In any case, thank you for sharing this; it's challenged me to broaden my usual mindset of engaging with things in terms of their intentionality and usability. What you describe is similarly trippy, yet in seemingly the opposite direction.
They're both true to my point. The latter feels to me like the superset of the former.
Like, if you imagine a small child learning about the world, they would first (obviously) learn that their parents are For Being Their Parents. Who's dad? Why, he's Dad.
And then slowly the child will learn that Dad is a whole person, and has all sorts of history and wants and perspectives that exceed the parent-child role; that Dad is "for" other things (a lover to Mom, a friend to his friends, a hard worker at his job, a hobbyist who collects minerals, etc).
And then slowly the child will learn that Dad is even more than just that—is even more than Dad's own concept of Dad, is a complex object that doesn't understand himself fully and is fully understood by no one; a participant in a vast and shifting social and memetic network; etc.
I personally think "recognizing that this object affords of other uses" is sort of like a good waystation or stepping stone toward "recognizing that this object exists outside of what uses I have for it and even indeed outside of my concept of it/is in important ways beyond my reach and understanding." I think it's good to do each of those mental moves for different reasons, and it's very important to be *capable* of both.
But like, I'll do the latter less often than I do the former, and I do the former less often than I just ... use my chair as a chair.
Thanks for the explanation. It's neat that you look at the first approach as a way of scaffolding up to the second, rather than simply a weak or insufficiently enlightened version of it. I can also now see that maybe thinking about a thing's purpose or social role or meaning to others isn't purely in the opposite direction, like I was saying; all of these require shaking loose from a purely me-centric, now-centric, current-frame-of-mind-centric perspective.
I find (Rat) fiction writing to be a little bit of an antidote for the problem you're gesturing at here, and nonfiction to be a little bit of poison. (Note: I'm talking about the activity *writing*, not reading.) With nonfiction, I find my mind narrowing towards insight and ontology and structure. But with fiction I feel like I, the writer, am trying to channel the entire world somehow (or worse: a fantasy world, though non-Rat magic largely erases the antidote quality), and in order to do that I need to let go of structure and just see What Happens Next. It's probably not as effective as directly meditating on the issue, but I thought I'd share.
Isn't a collection of interactions (including the non-normative things that YOU use it for) as untethered from the 'being' of the 'thing normies often refer to as a SIM Card Ejector Tool' as the pedestrian label you rail against?
Hot Take #2
Why is your take on one (or several as thought of by you) elements to 'sex' as non-vital, valid? That is to say that if a person who as 'up to now' identified as hetero-normative in their attraction experiences and has not found themselves 'interested/attracted' to hetero-non-normative interactions invalid? Must it be a lack of imagination on their part?
Yes to Hot Take #1. The point of gathering non-normative interactions isn't that you stop there, it's to *shake you loose* from the preconception. Once you realize that a chair can be used for things besides sitting, it's that much easier to realize that a chair is more than its mere uses.
I think you might have missed me, in Hot Take #2. I was speaking to/with a friend who had *volunteered* his own preexisting dissatisfaction with his own heterosexuality. That's the baseline I was starting from. I wasn't going up to people and being like, your preexisting sexuality is wrong and you should be dissatisfied with it. Nowhere in the above piece do I talk about a lack of attraction as being invalid.
I may have mis-read but my sense was that you got 'felt a certain kind of way' based on the 'simply dissatisfied with non-hetero-normative intimate interactions' answer from your friend that you then extended into the realm of 'why not use this thing (that many call 'Sex') for other than ejecting SIM cards (wink-wink-nudge-nudge)'.
Which fold me back to #1 - why is using a 'thing that most call a chair' as an easel (or firewood) 'better' than just using it as a chair?
I really do get the opportunity to 'stretch one's perceptions and biases', but is it really 'better' to break norms?
Hot Take #3
As a person who had a child with the intellectual approach of 'brining a new creature onto the planet in a stable loving relationship' know that (in a single case) turned out not to be a 'better' approach. Having a parent lack a deeply held desire 'for' a child is toxic to the new being's developing sense of self.
It's not that it's BETTER to use a thing for unaccustomed uses.
The thing that is better is being ABLE TO NOTICE that there's a distinction between how you typically use a thing, and what that thing is, in a deeper sense. Being able to notice that it CAN be used for other things, just as validly, and that it can also be not-used at all. Not that it's better to break norms, necessarily, but that it's better to notice that norms are just norms, and that they CAN be broken (because otherwise you can never replace norms with better norms, among other reasons).
HT#3: "Having a parent lack a deeply held desire 'for' a child is toxic to the new being's developing sense of self." I'm going to replace "is" with "can be," but otherwise yeah, makes sense.
Kids can survive being set on fire and dropped from great heights, and toxic is not fatal; so in a absolute sense 'can be' is correct. But as I was applying the specifics of my situation, I'll keep my 'is' thank-you-very-much. 💕
In that case, I think "was [that specific time]" is still superior to "is" in a way that implies that this will always be the case. I'm not even sure what you mean by saying that "bringing a new creature onto the planet in a stable loving relationship" was present but "the parent has a deeply held desire for the child" was absent.
(This is not me trying to press you for details. I just want to defend "I think that 'bringing a new creature onto the planet in a stable loving relationship' is in fact sufficient for healthy happy children in many cases. I don't think it's at all analogous to being set on fire or dropped from a great height, although I acknowledge that your specific case may well have been analogous to that!)
It is a complex trauma that we are still working through with our adult child. Not to get to deep into the personal, but child-rearing is often an exhausting and painful process of self-discovery/self-destruction. Lacking a deep sense of 'cherish' for the child and instead having an approach to parenting as a (sometimes grim) duty prevents the delivery of certain core nutrients.
I'm really struggling to understand what is different about this sort of naturalist behavior? Like, what would a person who studies a SIM card ejector for its contours do differently, either with the ejector itself or with other objects?
Would they use the SIM card ejector to poke holes in plastic food packaging or potatoes before cooking, instead of a fork? Would they use it to scratch themselves in a hard-to-reach spot? If you have one that fits around your finger, wear it as a ring and spin around the pointy bit? Look through the hole? Use it as a metal conduit if you're out of wires in an apocalypse situation? Would they use a paperclip to eject SIM cards?
Because if so...that doesn't seem like something you need to work on. I do all of those things with random objects all the time. Not specifically SIM card ejectors, but paperclips and washers and taken-apart-mechanical-pencils and the like. It would be significantly more effort to actually think that this particular metal object is exclusively "for" ejecting SIM cards, rather than simply what it is designed to be the best at. Anyone who's stuck thinking about objects in terms of rules could just stop doing that, and it would just mean not putting active effort into it. It doesn't take active effort to stop, that's the default.
If those aren't the sort of things you're trying to do, then I didn't really understand the post and could probably use some more examples.
The SIM card ejector tool is not, I think, where the important stuff happens.
The SIM card ejector tool is something like a bicep curl (metaphorically), and the important stuff is being able to carry your groceries in from the car and being able to pull yourself up to escape a burning building.
Like, there's a mental motion of escaping your narrow preconceptions that is *usually* not necessary, because the world and your life are built around narrow preconceptions that usually fit pretty well.
But when it matters (that your preexisting conceptual categories are broken, and driving you to disaster) it tends to matter A LOT. Like, being unable to get outside of your perspective on your spouse's behavior, such that you keep interpreting them in ways that are corroding your marriage.
"Increase your mental flexibility and box-breaking as a matter of habit" is like wearing your seatbelt—most of the time it confers zero benefit, but the habit of doing it means that when it DOES matter, you don't forget to/aren't incapable.
Once I reoriented to for-ness as a relation and not an inherent property, life became way more fun and less depressing. I guess I could also say that I felt more powerful and less put-upon as well. I really resonated with the quote from Logan feeling disgust at the thought of leaving/denying such an orientation.
I'm looking for a sharper idea of what you're saying, because I see two perspectives in your post. I'd call one a hacker mindset, where you look at a thing in terms of affordances. For example, a coffee mug could be useful for any purpose that requires a vessel with a thermally isolated handle, or a thing the size of your fist that you can grip tightly with your fingers, or that has whatever color or pattern this particular mug has on it. The other perspective is what I think of as more of a core naturalist mindset, where you notice the thing in terms of its precise contours and immediate sensory properties (I think it's not coincidental that I find it harder to put these observations into specific words).
Do you think of both of those as true to your point? Do you think they're even qualitatively different?
In any case, thank you for sharing this; it's challenged me to broaden my usual mindset of engaging with things in terms of their intentionality and usability. What you describe is similarly trippy, yet in seemingly the opposite direction.
They're both true to my point. The latter feels to me like the superset of the former.
Like, if you imagine a small child learning about the world, they would first (obviously) learn that their parents are For Being Their Parents. Who's dad? Why, he's Dad.
And then slowly the child will learn that Dad is a whole person, and has all sorts of history and wants and perspectives that exceed the parent-child role; that Dad is "for" other things (a lover to Mom, a friend to his friends, a hard worker at his job, a hobbyist who collects minerals, etc).
And then slowly the child will learn that Dad is even more than just that—is even more than Dad's own concept of Dad, is a complex object that doesn't understand himself fully and is fully understood by no one; a participant in a vast and shifting social and memetic network; etc.
I personally think "recognizing that this object affords of other uses" is sort of like a good waystation or stepping stone toward "recognizing that this object exists outside of what uses I have for it and even indeed outside of my concept of it/is in important ways beyond my reach and understanding." I think it's good to do each of those mental moves for different reasons, and it's very important to be *capable* of both.
But like, I'll do the latter less often than I do the former, and I do the former less often than I just ... use my chair as a chair.
Thanks for the explanation. It's neat that you look at the first approach as a way of scaffolding up to the second, rather than simply a weak or insufficiently enlightened version of it. I can also now see that maybe thinking about a thing's purpose or social role or meaning to others isn't purely in the opposite direction, like I was saying; all of these require shaking loose from a purely me-centric, now-centric, current-frame-of-mind-centric perspective.
I find (Rat) fiction writing to be a little bit of an antidote for the problem you're gesturing at here, and nonfiction to be a little bit of poison. (Note: I'm talking about the activity *writing*, not reading.) With nonfiction, I find my mind narrowing towards insight and ontology and structure. But with fiction I feel like I, the writer, am trying to channel the entire world somehow (or worse: a fantasy world, though non-Rat magic largely erases the antidote quality), and in order to do that I need to let go of structure and just see What Happens Next. It's probably not as effective as directly meditating on the issue, but I thought I'd share.
Hot Take #1
Isn't a collection of interactions (including the non-normative things that YOU use it for) as untethered from the 'being' of the 'thing normies often refer to as a SIM Card Ejector Tool' as the pedestrian label you rail against?
Hot Take #2
Why is your take on one (or several as thought of by you) elements to 'sex' as non-vital, valid? That is to say that if a person who as 'up to now' identified as hetero-normative in their attraction experiences and has not found themselves 'interested/attracted' to hetero-non-normative interactions invalid? Must it be a lack of imagination on their part?
Yes to Hot Take #1. The point of gathering non-normative interactions isn't that you stop there, it's to *shake you loose* from the preconception. Once you realize that a chair can be used for things besides sitting, it's that much easier to realize that a chair is more than its mere uses.
I think you might have missed me, in Hot Take #2. I was speaking to/with a friend who had *volunteered* his own preexisting dissatisfaction with his own heterosexuality. That's the baseline I was starting from. I wasn't going up to people and being like, your preexisting sexuality is wrong and you should be dissatisfied with it. Nowhere in the above piece do I talk about a lack of attraction as being invalid.
I may have mis-read but my sense was that you got 'felt a certain kind of way' based on the 'simply dissatisfied with non-hetero-normative intimate interactions' answer from your friend that you then extended into the realm of 'why not use this thing (that many call 'Sex') for other than ejecting SIM cards (wink-wink-nudge-nudge)'.
Which fold me back to #1 - why is using a 'thing that most call a chair' as an easel (or firewood) 'better' than just using it as a chair?
I really do get the opportunity to 'stretch one's perceptions and biases', but is it really 'better' to break norms?
Hot Take #3
As a person who had a child with the intellectual approach of 'brining a new creature onto the planet in a stable loving relationship' know that (in a single case) turned out not to be a 'better' approach. Having a parent lack a deeply held desire 'for' a child is toxic to the new being's developing sense of self.
Ah, I think I understand.
It's not that it's BETTER to use a thing for unaccustomed uses.
The thing that is better is being ABLE TO NOTICE that there's a distinction between how you typically use a thing, and what that thing is, in a deeper sense. Being able to notice that it CAN be used for other things, just as validly, and that it can also be not-used at all. Not that it's better to break norms, necessarily, but that it's better to notice that norms are just norms, and that they CAN be broken (because otherwise you can never replace norms with better norms, among other reasons).
HT#3: "Having a parent lack a deeply held desire 'for' a child is toxic to the new being's developing sense of self." I'm going to replace "is" with "can be," but otherwise yeah, makes sense.
Kids can survive being set on fire and dropped from great heights, and toxic is not fatal; so in a absolute sense 'can be' is correct. But as I was applying the specifics of my situation, I'll keep my 'is' thank-you-very-much. 💕
In that case, I think "was [that specific time]" is still superior to "is" in a way that implies that this will always be the case. I'm not even sure what you mean by saying that "bringing a new creature onto the planet in a stable loving relationship" was present but "the parent has a deeply held desire for the child" was absent.
(This is not me trying to press you for details. I just want to defend "I think that 'bringing a new creature onto the planet in a stable loving relationship' is in fact sufficient for healthy happy children in many cases. I don't think it's at all analogous to being set on fire or dropped from a great height, although I acknowledge that your specific case may well have been analogous to that!)
It is a complex trauma that we are still working through with our adult child. Not to get to deep into the personal, but child-rearing is often an exhausting and painful process of self-discovery/self-destruction. Lacking a deep sense of 'cherish' for the child and instead having an approach to parenting as a (sometimes grim) duty prevents the delivery of certain core nutrients.