[random]

[wispfox]

Some people, I get to know to a certain point, and then I stop. Some people, I don't ever get a sufficient interest level to get to know them. Some people, I seek out (with varying levels of how often or how much), and some people I'm good with just happening to run into them.

Sometimes, I can have sufficient interest in a person to seek them out, but then get to a point where it seems the balance point between time and energy is such that happening to run into them is the best point. Sometimes, people have to do a fair amount to get my attention, and they turn into a really good friend (or something). Sometimes, I'm fine with just knowing that people of niftiness exist, regardless of if I ever get a reasonable amount of time with them.

All of this sometimes makes me feel fickle. And yet. And yet, if I actually tried to find time for everyone I know in equal amounts, I wouldn't know anyone very well, and would burn myself out in fruitless ways. So, knowing this, why is it that I can still feel fickle for picking and choosing where my time and energy goes? I confuse me.

There are lots of people I think are nifty. There are lots of people who I would be happy getting to know better if time and happenstance allowed for it. There are far fewer people who I can read easily, or perhaps who can read me easily enough that my difficulty does not become a problem. And ease of reading someone appears to be a major factor in who I am close to and who I will seek out.

There are definitely times that I look at the widely spread-outedness of the people who I am strongly drawn to - regardless of whether or not this pull causes me to feel a need to interact with them frequently - and am glad they are widely spread, because I would probably have a harder time reminding myself that it's ok to see people infrequently, if they were nearer. And yet, it can also frustrate the hell out of me that so very many people are really far away from me. Distance, and lack thereof, do make a very big difference in interaction patterns, and there appears to be no way to tell if in a good or bad way. Some of the people I had a lot of interaction with when I first got to know them are people I feel closer to now that it's less frequent. Some of the people who are far away are people with whom I suspect a reduction of distance would be good, although certainly still an adjustment.


The idea of not having anything for which one is working in an entirely non-verbal space baffles the hell out of me. I can think of three things, off the top of my head, which are entirely non-verbal for me (math, energy work, touch of any sort).


Apparently yes, I do need a jacket. (Yes, I'm not in Boston. It couldn't find Andover. Where it's snowing. Not misty) I don't remember who linked to this.


I have no idea who linked to this, either, but University of Massachusetts researchers will announce today that they have discovered a strategy for immobilizing sperm and have reached an agreement with a Norwegian company to develop a male contraceptive pill.


Ok. Sleep now. Seriously.

Comments

[yulecat.livejournal.com]

Heh - it tells me "it's frickin FREEZING!" But I already knew that - it's Maine. :)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

That's so much like me. I work with people all day long. I am on for my entire work day. I don't have paperwork, very little downtime. I don't have a lot of oomph for running around pursuing. For the most part, I'm happy to run into people, to chat online briefly, to nurture a small handful of close friendships -- and even those are with people who can deal with my energy. That's about all I've got.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

nurture a small handful of close friendships -- and even those are with people who can deal with my energy.

And I suspect this is a large part of who I can become close to. They have to be - among other things - people who I can read, and people who can cope with the fact that my energy fluxuates wildly, especially in the wintertime.

I don't have a lot of oomph for running around pursuing.

Sometimes, I do. But mostly I don't, especially now that I know _so_ many people.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

The idea of having anything that doesn't require worded thoughts baffles the 'ell out of me, so you're not alone, there.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

*blink* Actually, reverse that.

I have trouble with the idea of having _everything_ be worded thoughts. As I think I said above, I could easily think of three things which I _can't_ be verbal about while I'm doing them. At least not if I'm doing them well.

And the weirdest part about this is that I organize my thoughts/memories with a word index. And I'm _still_ not completely verbal. My brain confuses me. :)

[griffen.livejournal.com]

No, you misunderstand.

As you have non-worded thoughts, I *only* have worded thoughts, and the idea that anyone can think without words boggles me.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

*nod* Which is what I was originally commenting on as confusing me. But then, I have a combination of both worded and non-worded, but the things which are non-worded are so very _strongly_ non-worded that I cannot grasp the idea of it being worded.

I think I misunderstood because it felt like you were agreeing with my original confusion, which was being confused about, apparently, what you do. (as well as what other people I know do)

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

*curious* Do you work well with maps or graphs or drawing? What about sensory info where words are tricky?

[griffen.livejournal.com]

I can't read a map to save my life. Graphs are *very* difficult for me - it's my worst area in math.

I can draw, but it's a conscious thing, not a natural ability.

If the thought can't exist in words for me, I cannot think it. That's really how my brain works.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Do you just disregard that type of info, if given the option? What about things that everyone encounters, music, weather, etc? Those are experienced, but not necessarily verbal...

I wasn't disputing how your brain works. I was just curious how it does work. :)

Feel free to look through some of the other threads for how my brain works.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

It isn't whether I'm given the option to disregard it. Is a deaf person given the option to hear or not hear sound?

Music is still in words for me. Even if it's not worded, I can't think about it in anything but words. Same for weather - "It's raining hard. It's snowing. It's windy, and it's making the air dry." Visual memories are not visual for me - I can't remember visuals at all. My "visual" memories are stored as long strings of description - I have often said that I can't even remember how my own children look if I don't have a photograph of them with me.

I have a fine kinesthetic memory, but that doesn't qualify as "thought" for me - that's muscle memory, and has nothing to do with my cognitive abilities.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok. I didn't realize. Hence my question. :)

Weather is partially worded for me, but there are some things I can't put into words or can't put into words very well. The feel of cold air when there's snow or the humidity associated with rain. The hot dry or humid air in the summer. People may know what I'm talking about, but I can't verbally explain more than that.

Hmm. For me, I disagree that kinesthetics are different from thought. Or rather, there's a gradient of kinesthetics (learning, where it's verbal/pictures/doing; automatic where it's just doing and hard to verbalize further). I think that's why many people have trouble learning or teaching kinesthetics with words, or even just from pictures.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

I don't see any other way to learn a kinesthetic skill *except* by doing it.

As far as describing weather in words - didn't you just do exactly that? People know what humidity and dry air and all the rest feel like - so all you have to do is refer to them for them to get it.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Yes. I was referring more to the teaching, I guess. Some people can learn kinesthetics from verbal descriptions; whereas others need pictures or preferably demonstrations.

There are more evocative verbal ways to describe weather than what I can do and the brief examples you were giving. And even then, there are parts of weather that are distinctly nonverbal to me. I can't parse language fine enough to describe them.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Math is pretty heavily verbal for me, as the numbers have names and the processes are named. They make more sense to me as numbers, but can be rendered verbally. Now music... that I can't be truly verbal about. Separate notes, separate intervals, lyrics, yes; music itself, no.

No wonder you had trouble explaining energy work. Still trying to figure that out... :\

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Note: I've since come to the conclusion that energy work and math are _language_, but just not words.

Things like kinesthetics and 2-d manipulation of objects (eg, tetris) are entirely not language for me. And touch-based interactions are best (most appreciated by me) if I an in a non-language mental state.

Thingy.

Getting things which are language, but not words, to words is far, far easier than getting things which aren't even language to words. I also note that pulling things from my subconscious to conscious also appears to be translating from language to words.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Math is a lot easier for me to word than motion/kinesthetics.

Tetris is actually language for me, since it's finitely defined. down, right, left, rotate 90, 180, 270, 360.

kinesthetics are not. pictures/doing. doing is much much better.

Art is not words, beyond color/pretty/ugly/boring. Similar with writing. I can talk about grammar, and I can say foo is better than bar, but not word things about foo's good qualities beyond I like/dislike foo.

Temperature + sun states are also difficult for me to word precisely.

And touch-based interactions are best (most appreciated by me) if I an in a non-language mental state.

What happens when you're in a language mental state and someone touches or asks to touch you?

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

What happens when you're in a language mental state and someone touches or asks to touch you?

...?

Presuming that the touch isn't from someone I'm not comfortable being touched by, it just means that I enjoy it less - because I'm distracted - than I would if I were solely concentrating on it. It tends to be what causes me to give really brief hugs, for example.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Well, that was bouncing off of And touch-based interactions are best (most appreciated by me) if I an in a non-language mental state.

So I was basically curious how your reaction changed. Makes sense. :)

[ian-gunn.livejournal.com]

I would not worry about being fickle. At the risk of shooting my own request with you in the foot, let me just point out that there are 6 billion some odd people in this world. You do not have time to have any meaningful interaction with more then a tiny fraction of them. The net makes it very easy to meet new people, too easy in some ways. How you filter out from the potential flood is your own business. Saying "no" when you feel like it is not fickle, it is reasonable, sane and healthy.

[eclectic-1.livejournal.com]

I would exclude anyone from Woonsocket, RI. It's a silly name.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

*laugh*

But silly is _GOOD_!

[eclectic-1.livejournal.com]

No, don't you see? It's competition!

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

*laugh*

Only if I'm competing! ;)

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

BOOM!

[eclectic-1.livejournal.com]

BURMA!

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

SHERPA!

[eclectic-1.livejournal.com]

*laugh*

You win!

:)

[ian-gunn.livejournal.com]

Heh. I should share my wife's inside joke. We were helping get a gaming convention going a few years ago in Manchester, NH. It was the first year for the con so we did not have much money to work with. eclectic_1 and I were working on the mailing list. We had a list from a larger established convention, Total Confusion, but we could not afford to mail the con flyer to all of it. Ahem, this was pre ubiquitous web so a mailing was the best way to get to people, maybe that is more then a few years ago depending on your definition. We trimmed the list to just New England, still to big. We trimmed out more outlier areas, still too big. Then we got a bit silly, "Woonsocket, says eclectic_1 "Woonsocket does not need our flyer!" Hurray! That put us under the critical number for the mailing.

[eclectic-1.livejournal.com]

I also took out people from Manchester, CT, because they were competition.

I would have taken out anyone from Scranton, PA if there had been any on the list.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

But they have Mardi Gras there (http://www.livejournal.com/users/conuly/562977.html?#cutid2).

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

I would not worry about being fickle.

I'm mostly not. Sometimes, I am, but mostly not.

You do not have time to have any meaningful interaction with more then a tiny fraction of them.

Yes. But in order for me to figure out who that tiny fraction _is_, I have a fair number of filters. Some of which can make it seem like I've gone from 'huh! You're neat and I want to eat your brain' to 'ok, I am good with seeing you at parties and that's it' with no apparent reason for the change.

And it's when I do _that_ that I feel like I'm being fickle.

I don't mind it as much if I run into people and know from the beginning that they are people-I-like-to-run-into-at-parties. And I am fine with running into people who fascinate me and _continue_ to fascinate me when I get to know them better.

I don't like the middle state, where I initially think someone is fascinating, and then realize that there is something about them (usually that they are difficult for me to read, or that they are crazy in incompatible ways with the ways that I am crazy. Others, too, but those are most common).

And, I don't mind hanging out with people who ping me to hang out but are not strongly in my fascinated/want to get to know better category, but it'll happen infrequently, and I am unlikely to be pinging them.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

*nods* This, I have major trouble with on my friends list. I like the people there, but I don't have time to read all their entries. So I have to filterpick the ones I "like more". This makes me sad.

Also! Even with the local and nonlocal people that I do want to see, scheduling can be very difficult. Particularly when both of us are a "oh, we'll see eachother sometime" lack-of-firm-committment types.