I think I agree with both of you.

As Mary and I navigate our way through our great European Vacation, we are both learning how to "read" public transportation, etc.   Since she is much more able to hoof arbitrarily long distances with minimal comfort, a 2km hike to get from one terminal of public transport to another is within her idea of "an OK time" while I reserve that as "a desperate measure".    She is much more sensitive to cold/wet/wind than I am, so a 200M schlep becomes intolerable for her while I would do it in my t-shirt and sandals.

We are both, by nature, not particularly argumentative, disagreeable or critical of others (my ramblings here may seem otherwise?) but I understand Glen's point.  I am much more spatially comfortable than Mary and am left with the task of sussing out "the best way to get from point A to point B at any given time under any given circumstances", but because I feel I am too often a dismal failure with what feels to me to be an exotic (if not dysfunctional) system with consequences to her (causing us to have to hike 2km in cold windy wet) I have begun articulating my best guess of the A->B strategy I have arrived at, not because I expect her to provide significant critique or even insight into my ideation, but rather because A) I want her to buy in to the risks involved; B) I think she *might* recognize a flaw in my logic, especially after she has tried to parse a handful of these navigational plans and seen how they go wrong (e.g.  "I know we are at the right bus stop, getting on the right bus-line, but are we going in the right *direction*?")

When I get a lot of head-nodding, uh-huhs, this degenerates to A) Buy In but not B) Helpful Criticism.   If (when) she might ask me "but are we going the right *direction*?) that criticism is acutely useful, even if my answer is a convicted (and hopefully correct) "yes we are!".   I have traveled previously with people who were more intrinsically disagreeable, and to the extent that *they* raise their contribution at the same rate they raise their *disagreement*, I much appreciate it.

I believe that one can often be a convincing *critic* without actually parsing the *semantics* of the situation, just looking for *syntactic* errors or anomalies to poke at.   I find the latter rather unhelpful.  Many popular media critics seem to do more of the latter than the former.

On 5/17/22 3:41 PM, Jon Zingale wrote:
Glen writes: """
Nick likes to say he's grateful for anyone who reads his writing. But
the actual good faith action is to criticize it. Reading it is like
nodding politely with the occasional "ah", "yes", "uh-huh" while
someone tells you their boring story. Engagement is the real
objective. Reading is a mere means to that end. And disagreement is
demonstrative engagement.
"""

I apologize for disagreeing and reading past the text in places. When I
think about *reading* awkward social situations or divvying up grocery
store tasks with my partner, disagreement is not always my preferred form
of demonstrative engagement. Sometimes it is pleasant to offload some
of the implementation details to a "group thought" compiler.

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom  
bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribehttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIChttp://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru presenthttps://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
   1/2003 thru 6/2021http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Attachment: OpenPGP_0xFD82820D1AAECDAE.asc
Description: OpenPGP public key

Attachment: OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom  
bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/

Reply via email to