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Meeting in the middle means shifting the goal posts until we're all knee deep in right wing bullshit
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this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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I found myself unconsciously drifting away from people who are mentally stuck behind the definition of words. I didn't realize what I was doing or why I was feeling safety in isolating myself for the longest time.
People who are so heavily invested in the definitions of words rarely have good intentions.
It never really made much sense to me. Words are all made up and are in constant change from one time period to the next. Each generation has their own words and what it means to them.
I think subconsciously I realized that people obessed with defining words were attempting to assert power or dominance over me or my interests. That's why I pushed back in my own way. By living a life that can't be defined and cutting those weirdos out of my life.
After a weirdo dies, what did all that time spent fighting about the definition of a word archive? Maybe we can ask Charlie.
Some people just like clear communication and don't find that idea stupid, weird, evil, or controlling. I actually would say that opposing clear communication so hard comes from a need to manipulate people and conversations to be whatever you want them to be. I get that words are slippery, they definitely are, but you shouldn't misuse them and then run scared if someone calls you on it.
It's still possible to communicate clearly and not get dragged down with getting lost in the excess of words from so many niche or specific topics of human interests.
Personally I choose to speak using words that are more common, simpler and broader. The purpose of that for me is to be understood by as many people as possible. To be understood by people of many ages or English skill level. This generally involves me using more words to describe what it is that I want to say or express without the need to condense meaning into words I have trouble defining because it's outside of my personal interests.
Since I want to be understood by so many people, it means that many more people can hold me up to my word. That I can be called out by anyone, young or old, English as a first language or not and so on.
When I'm around people who talk like a dictionary, using all these words that seem definable but leaves me confused and trying to fill in the blanks in a conversation, I'm left with questions. Can they define all those words? But more importantly, who are they trying to talk to? Me? Or their preferred group of like-minded people?
There was a time before written language where language was continued through culture, tradition, story and possibly many other ways. This current experience isn't the one and only way to experience life.
The ones who spend a large amount of personal energy fighting to define words will have spent a large amount of their limited time alive fighting to define words. They could have tried building community, or creating art or maybe just existing in the moment and being happy with the beauty that surrounds them. And then they, just like us, will all die. Life will continue on and the definition of words will continue to flow, change, evolve or die like so much of human culture and activity.
You're only thinking of the manipulators and those who ~~relish~~ enjoy control over others.
You imply that the time could have been better spent in service of art or the community.
I ask you then, have you thought of the clerks? The assistants? Art? What of the writers?
Language can be used to control or manipulate yes. But before those purposes came, came the need for it to first exist, as a tool to forge connection.
To describe the sunset, give voice to the grief, and exclaim the joyous cry.