Every utterance has 2 agenda, says Steven Pinker,
authoritatively: popular Harvard Professor of
Psycholinguistics.
1. Bottom line—Taking Care of Business.
WHAT the converse-action is ostensibly about.
The “text”: More ice-cream, paper dead line,
where’s my glasses, E -= MC squared, There
There It’ll be alright, just breathe, health
welfare and wellness.
Content galore, true?
2. The Surrounding Sphere –Negotiating Relationship.
Call it the envelope of care and concern for polite politic
getting-along (like me see me hear me touch me feed me)
OR—standing away and apart from all that: cut me loose;
either way: relation-shipping going on, whatever the varied
token topics of TCB that might SEEM to be What It’s All
About—but isn’t.
It’s about Negotiating Relationship.
And TCB is the mere means by
which IT is negotiated.
The professor delivering a speech on genetics, the musician
playing a 12-bar blues, the athlete, potter, administrator,
student writing on Shelley…Taking Care of Business, sure.
We must.
But what COUNT counts is #2: Negotiating Relationship.
Don’t be deceived by the bottom-line, seduced, caught up
inside the back & forth— yes I did, no you didn’t. …
I’m not saying that’s not significant. Of course it is.
Don’t mean to diminish; BUT it’s merely the means
no matter how profound or trivial—for the strokes
and status confirmation, rearrangement, figuration
and reconfiguration of me and my relationship to
OTHER: I and Thou as some theologian expresses it:
taking care of his own business. .
Now: one final twist. To the degree I consciously
turn ("repent") to consider Relationship Negotiation—
it then
LIKE reducing a dream to waking life & conscious
interpretation. “Boy,” I say: “I GET IT”—as I flat line
the dream to suit my conscious taking -care-of-business
terms of desire, purpose, aims, measurable outcomes.
Relationship Negotiation let’s say, is like autonomic
process: like the sweat that appears in my armpits
and on my brow when I’m awkward, and trying too
hard: the blush and stammer that contextualize my
effort to be cool. Kinetic body language that surrounds
my verbal play. Beyond my control, damnit.
Relationship is beyond my control, damnit.
If I think I’ve got it, I don’t and the more
I work at it—the more I eclipse the process.
It’s bigger than me. Non-unilateral and
Beyond me. Damnit.
Do you love me? You must. I am trying hard, working
for it. See what a good boy am I? Love me, damnit:
I’m taking care of business.
xxxooo, Sam
What is love? Some kind of sweet mixture of being valued and respected... being considered? For some shallow soul, maybe just being PAID attention to?
ReplyDeleteWe can never do enough. Each next moment is an opportunity to lose what we never earned in the first place. That temporary affection, that shallow momentary respect (usually on the terms of agreement; taking care of the same business - or even better, you taking care of my business. How we all love that).
Shallow...
Fun watching grown people splashing around in the depthless puddles, trying to get wet.
Splish Splash: I was taking a bath.
ReplyDeleteSee me hear me touch me feed me!
Yes: pathetic. Pathologic. It's the denial and cover-up that generates
the psychic toxic waste and thickens
the bozone layer. All I need is
love, damnit.
But what is it? Seriously, I only have my own idea. It's a sadness really - if I am the only one who believes in the love I believe in, then how could I ever receive and who would care if I gave it?
ReplyDeleteBut if the common love isn't "good", to me, then why would I want it? Why would I give it away?
What is love? It seems we all love others as we'd want to be loved, but we all want to be loved differently. Funny. Everyone ends up being loved wrong; and ending up frustrated and resentful. :)
I like Pauls Corinthian rant on Love, but it only works for me
ReplyDeleteif I keep in mind that I don't
have IT--it makes sense to me (what he says) if, as I read it I realize I am Without Love. The temptation is to think--ah, yes--all you say, Paul, is true and thank god I've got love so that I'm NOT all that gong show.
NO: it makes eminent sense to realize it's all true about me because I don't Got Love. Milk, sure. Love: no. It's not mine
to Get. So no wonder I am pathetic, frustrated, resentful.
Makes good sense.