brute journal

Where are you and where are you going?
classical_Liberal
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Re: brute journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

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Last edited by classical_Liberal on Fri Feb 05, 2021 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

Riggerjack
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Re: brute journal

Post by Riggerjack »

how does Riggerjack know what kind of man he wants to be?
Wow. Sorry for the slow response, I had to think about it.

I'm just not that rigorous. I didn't plan out who I wanted to be.

As a kid I was poor. Drugs, dirty clothes, evicted, and homeless kind of poor. I went to 20 schools before I graduated early. I never attended the same school 2 years in a row.

Being geeky, and moving that much, and all the other baggage, by the time I was an adult, I had been judged and found wanting by pretty much everyone I had ever known.

So primarily, initially, the man I wanted to be was just a man without so much baggage. I started with money, by getting a job, and normalizing that.

Then I joined the army as a hard reset to my life and self. Not that I saw myself as wanting to be a soldier, but more as a way out of where I was and what I was doing. Find new skills, try something completely contrary to my nature. And I got a lot out of the army. I just wish I enlisted for 2 years rather than four, as most of the learning curve flattened after 2.

I got out, bummed about for a year or two, then got into cabling. This, unlike previous jobs at least had career potential, and in my mid twenties, I worked my way into being a foreman.

Being a foreman was a great, and incredibly stressful experience for me. It forced me to pay continual attention to social games. Usually, I lost patience with social positioning scrambling. But now I needed to know who did what tasks better, who works well with whom, who loses productivity when tired, or hungry, who had troubles at home, or my favorite, who could work on their own, without me checking up on them. I dreamed about this, and thought about it as I got ready for work, at work, when I got home, then I dreamed about it again.

And during those years, I experimented with my behaviors, and how to use body language and social positioning to help my crew focus on my goals.

I can't tell you how horrific it would be, to have me as a boss. Someone dedicating their life to finding ways to help you focus on his goals, has to be about as uncomfortable and messed up as it sounds. But the plus side for me, is that having been that horrible manic obsessive boss, is that I have developed some extreme tolerance for the failings of other bosses. I don't want the job, so I have a much easier time letting go of the bad decisions of people doing jobs I don't want to do.

Then I got a job in engineering, where I can rest at work, and focus on my life outside of work.

So, deciding who I wanted to be wasn't a well thought out process, but rather it was me fixing areas that I felt were weak.

First I fixed money, by getting a job.

Then I picked a hard reset with the army, and learned lessons about peers I had never had before.

Then I found a job that could be a career, and had to pay attention to social games, learn to accept leadership and to help others accept my leadership.

At the same time, I had to work on my relationship skills. Figuring out how to be a partner, then how to expect/demand partnership from my partner, which is an entirely different thing. Then I found my wife, who has really brought all the pieces together.

And for the last decade, I have been focused on not needing a job anymore.

So really, I don't have a recipe for deciding who the man is that you want to be. I started by patching the holes, then cutting out the parts I didn't like, then grafting on the pieces I wanted, but didn't have. None of which is terribly helpful if you don't feel inadequacies, and don't have areas to you want to grow into more.

Riggerjack
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Re: brute journal

Post by Riggerjack »

On a separate note, I have a friend, Humberto, a Puerto Rican by way of NYC. Hard geek, then Navy, now a tech. Great, smart guy, but he enjoys rubbing people the wrong way. Loves showing the world who is smarter, because usually it's him. This isn't what I would describe as a smart pattern.

But, because we are both exmilitary geeks, we get along fine. And he was telling me about being treated poorly when buying flowers for his wife. That despite having spent ridiculous amounts of money over the years, when he went inside and dealt with a new storekeeper, she kept trying to sell him the bargain flowers. Yeah, he's in a torn up jacket and dirty jeans from work, and he hasn't shaved in a few days, but she shouldn't assume he can't pay for better flowers...

At this point, I tried to break it down from the sales ladies' perspective, that she was trying to help. And more to the point, she's working at a flower shop, dealing with the public.

"Yeah, well I work with the public, too."

No, he has to deal with customers, who have arranged for him to get there, and he's going to solve a technical problem for them that they cannot solve for themselves. This is entirely different from dealing with the random public.

I believe in the principal of charity. Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity or incompetence. Never assume that an ambiguous comment was meant in the negative light. She didn't treat you like you wanted to be treated. Was this by malice or incompetence? Well, she's working at a flower desk for minimum wage, at the peak of a long boom cycle in the economy; that doesn't argue for her being overly competent, does it?

"That really is charitable. So you think she's just not capable of being a better flower salesgirl, so I should cut her some slack. You can be a really condescending prick, man. Maybe she was just having a bad day,"

I don't ascribe to her a charitable interpretation of her actions, for her. I do it for me.

"WTF are you talking about?"

You had a bad buying experience. You were not helped by a sales person in the way you wanted to be. You decided it was because you were being judged for your appearance, that this judgement was inaccurate, and you are still pissed off as you describe the situation to me. I used to do this, and I was angry all the time. But as I have watched people make a hash of their lives all around me, I have really come to realize how little thought most people put into most of their decisions, and most of what they are doing is reacting badly to bad situations, often of their own making, that I am only part of, by interacting with them. From this, I take:
1. Control. I'm only getting this BS from this person because I chose to interact with this person. This was my choice, and if we continue, that is also my choice. Accepting my role in the current unpleasant situation, gives me the choice as to continue to be there or not. This is something that is happening in my presence, it is NOT something someone is doing to me.

2. By removing malice as a cause, it stops being personal. This isn't the salesperson being mean to me, this is me dealing with someone not capable or interested in doing her job better. If she's being a bitch to me, I need to do something about it, making her problem, my problem. If she is incompetent, her problem is her boss' problem, and I don't have to care.

The principal of charity allows me to let go of her, and her problems, and allows me to focus on my life. Not carrying around the possible injustices makes me a happier man. Not internalizing her judgement of me, dismissing her opinion, allows me to continue to be happy with me.

Now I'm not saying to just ignore negative feedback. I'm saying to judge the judgement of others. If people are always giving you the stink eye, maybe look to what would cause that reaction. If someone is having a bad day, you don't have to share it. And if someone thinks you are foolish/ugly/stupid, that only matters as much as you care what they think. You can't please everyone all the time, so there's no reason to carry around the judgement of others, especially the impersonal judgements.

Now, as I described in the previous post, I was judged in well deserved harsh light in my youth. I know what it is to subconsciously expect rejection. I'm a geek, my wife and friends are geeks, and I'm old enough that the term held no power in my youth. Geeks were the smart rejects, but nobody would fail to recognize the rejection. And now as adults, they still, when in public, carry that defensive posture, the expectation of rejection to a greater or lesser degree.

And they get treated differently than I do. It sounds fcuked up, but it's true. I have watched people being very rude to my wife when I am not right there. She's grinding coffee at Costco, and some slightly older and bigger woman will try to dominate the space. Standing right next to her, invading personal space trying to rush her out, so she can use the grinder. People drive carts to cut her off, and try to edge in, and force her to give way. Humberto has the same problem. My wife thinks it is because I am big and she isn't. Humberto thinks it's because I am white, and he isn't. I think it has everything to do with bearing. Because I was treated like that when I was young, but now I'm not. I was big and white in my youth, but I didn't know how to signal "clear a path" or "I have infinite patience" without explicitly stating such things. So I didn't. And I was treated like it.

This a side effect of my time as a foreman, of learning to move people by helping them find themselves where I wanted them to be. I don't really know how to describe it, and I don't usually do it on purpose, it is just a fringe benefit of being who I am.

So part of what makes me a happy man, is not taking on the negative judgement of random strangers, and part of it is not experiencing the negative judgement very much.

Rereading this, it seems hopelessly muddled. But I hope it helps.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: brute journal

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

Sounds like golden wisdom to me, Riggerjack, and not at all muddled. I can’t wait to get into it with someone hogging space in a Costco.

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

classical_Liberal wrote:
Wed Feb 07, 2018 12:33 pm
Volatility remains volatile
sure does.
classical_Liberal wrote:
Wed Feb 07, 2018 12:33 pm

Jordan Peterson [..and his..] ideas on the archetypal heroes/gods/serpents serving as valuable contributors to overall human psyche as part of a biological, evolutionary process
brute literally can't understand what Jordan Peterson is saying. there are words, but brute does not know what he means by them. it's like listening to a religious art teacher who had too many spiked brownies.
classical_Liberal wrote:
Wed Feb 07, 2018 12:33 pm
Now that you are employed again, your posts seem to emanate a more fulfilled, or maybe positive tone. I’m curious, do you think this the result of having carrots to chase on your hamster wheel? Obviously you’re fully aware of the fact you’re on the wheel, but it doesn’t seem to be taking away from the enjoyment of running. Put another way, do you think the distraction to trying to reach proverbial carrot, even if unattainable, a better distraction than just running the wheel?
brute isn't sure if it's "trying to reach the carrot" or "running on the wheel" that fulfills/distracts him, but it sure is fulfilling/distracting.

brute is fascinated by the live observation of internal, sub-conscious mechanisms. there are various mechanisms within "brute" than he can observe while they are happening, but it feels like watching an animal in a zoo react to a stimulus. besides the work carrot, another example is how the laughter of female humans makes brute happy. he knows that evolutionary biology just turned brute into a machine that wants to protect pretty human females so they can procreate, but it still works, even while brute is being cynical about it. it even works while brute is cynically commenting on it to said human female, causing her to laugh, making it work.

this all strengthens brute's belief that Dennett is right: consciousness is an illusion.
The answer always seemed obvious to me. There is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops, as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices, content, for the most part, to be told what to do next.

slowtraveler
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Re: brute journal

Post by slowtraveler »

Brute seems happy...and badass.

Felipe likes this side of Brute.

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

Riggerjack wrote:
Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:19 am
I'm just not that rigorous. I didn't plan out who I wanted to be.
that's the point. no human ever does. and the ones that say they do are fooling themselves more than brute.

the point is that who Riggerjack wants to be "just happened" to him, just as it "just happened" to brute. trying to become something if something "just happened" seems somewhat absurd - like religiously sticking to the rules of a random board game, found on the side of the road.

there is nothing wrong with "Riggerjack does what Riggerjack does because that's what Riggerjack likes to do", but there isn't much advice in it.

this is not meant to be dismissive, brute is just trying to demonstrate that all of human ambition is arbitrary, including self-realization, because the image a human wants to realize of himself is itself arbitrarily dictated.

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

Riggerjack wrote:
Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:19 am
As a kid I was poor.
brute was never poor. brute grew up as sheltered as is possible. brute once had to get a $200 loan from a friend to cover rent, and swore never to go into debt again, because it made him feel terrible. the most pressing fear brute has ever felt is existential angst.

after that, brute discovered that his favorite hobby (frantically typing on keyboards) also happened to pay exquisitely. combined with brute's somewhat weird preference structure (*), brute was able to fulfill all of the material dreams he's ever had within 1-2 years of starting work. there aren't many other dreams he has.

sometimes brute has vague dreams of learning certain skills (un poco español, caralho), but then again most of them strike him as pretty useless, and it feels similar to grinding in a video game to ascend to Level 99.

this isn't to say that brute's life is picture perfect like a Hollywood movie, it's just that there doesn't seem that much to go for that brute really cares much about.

what is a brute to do who has easy money but only likes cheap thrills? brute has spent considerable amounts of his life trying to find meaning, but has given up on the idea of meaning as different from distraction. all those humans who find their life meaningful.. brute just finds them distracted. this is not bad, as the thing they're distracted from (the truth that life is meaningless) is not very important. brute couldn't care less if humans are distracted. but it does make him somewhat cynical. if brute's life were to end tomorrow, he'd be fine. pain, bad. the end? not that bad. life is fine, but nothing compared to the real thing.

at this point, brute thinks he has discovered most of his own desires and many of his personal quirks. it mostly boils down to steak, coffee, typing on keyboards, and debating pointless philosophical questions with good friends. in that regard, this discussion with Riggerjack is providing great value to brute.

sometimes brute has vague dreams of finding meaning in helping others, like "helping the poor", "working with the local community", "teaching ex-cons and veterans how to type on keyboards", or "something something black kids and cops". but it doesn't seem to interest brute enough to take any action (so far). brute doesn't actually seem to derive too much pleasure from helping others.

* brute's somewhat weird preference structure: brute thinks he's written about this before. for almost any of his desires, brute finds that they are filled relatively quickly. brute has seen homeless humans with better phones than him, because he simply doesn't care about phones. brute owns 2 plates and 2 bowls and 2 forks, but only because he had a guest once. brute has 2 complete sets of steak knives, because they don't come in singles and he received the other set as a gift. brute thinks Starbuck's has decent coffee. brutes simply, naturally, does not desire much.

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Seppia
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Re: brute journal

Post by Seppia »

Great exchanges, thanks a lot gentlemen, the last posts were supremely interesting

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Sclass
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Re: brute journal

Post by Sclass »

Yeah, thanks 7W and RJ, I’m one step further in trying to figure out what makes me tick. I’ve been struggling with some of these feelings lately and I’ve not been able to put my finger on it.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: brute journal

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

@brute

“Life is fine, but nothing compared to the real thing.”

What, may I ask, is the real thing?

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

brute wouldn't know. maybe fiction or cheap thrills.

classical_Liberal
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Re: brute journal

Post by classical_Liberal »

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Last edited by classical_Liberal on Fri Feb 05, 2021 12:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

daylen
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Re: brute journal

Post by daylen »

BRUTE wrote:
Sat Feb 10, 2018 2:48 am
sometimes brute has vague dreams of learning certain skills (un poco español, caralho), but then again most of them strike him as pretty useless, and it feels similar to grinding in a video game to ascend to Level 99.

this isn't to say that brute's life is picture perfect like a Hollywood movie, it's just that there doesn't seem that much to go for that brute really cares much about.

what is a brute to do who has easy money but only likes cheap thrills? brute has spent considerable amounts of his life trying to find meaning, but has given up on the idea of meaning as different from distraction. all those humans who find their life meaningful.. brute just finds them distracted. this is not bad, as the thing they're distracted from (the truth that life is meaningless) is not very important. brute couldn't care less if humans are distracted. but it does make him somewhat cynical. if brute's life were to end tomorrow, he'd be fine. pain, bad. the end? not that bad. life is fine, but nothing compared to the real thing.

at this point, brute thinks he has discovered most of his own desires and many of his personal quirks. it mostly boils down to steak, coffee, typing on keyboards, and debating pointless philosophical questions with good friends. in that regard, this discussion with Riggerjack is providing great value to brute.

If life truly were meaningless, then why do anything at all? You have motivation enough to act, therefore your life has meaning to you. These distractions have kept you alive so far, but what if these distractions do not provide you with the skills to stay alive in the future? Is the ultimate meaning just survival?

If so, living now in a way that allows your future self to exist is meaningful. Understanding the future so that the present self can adapt ahead of time will increase lifespan; to predict the future requires an understanding of the past. That should provide enough distraction (by this logic it is really an activity that contributes towards the goal of survival).

bryan
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Re: brute journal

Post by bryan »

I think @BRUTE (and others) will enjoy this: https://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/post/ ... /the-tower

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

daylen wrote:
Sat Feb 10, 2018 1:46 pm
If life truly were meaningless, then why do anything at all? You have motivation enough to act, therefore your life has meaning to you.
tbh it feels more like momentum than motivation. not doing anything at all is also a decision to make, for which brute doesn't really have a justification either.

Riggerjack
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Re: brute journal

Post by Riggerjack »

the point is that who Riggerjack wants to be "just happened" to him, just as it "just happened" to brute. trying to become something if something "just happened" seems somewhat absurd - like religiously sticking to the rules of a random board game, found on the side of the road.

there is nothing wrong with "Riggerjack does what Riggerjack does because that's what Riggerjack likes to do", but there isn't much advice in it.
I think I demonstrated in "the thread where riggerjack schools brute on free will" that I can't. I can't compete with your faith in determinism. I'm not trying. How, at the nuts and bolts level the brain works is not of much interest to me. All I need is a functional model.

brute isn't sure if it's "trying to reach the carrot" or "running on the wheel" that fulfills/distracts him, but it sure is fulfilling/distracting.

brute is fascinated by the live observation of internal, sub-conscious mechanisms. there are various mechanisms within "brute" than he can observe while they are happening, but it feels like watching an animal in a zoo react to a stimulus. besides the work carrot, another example is how the laughter of female humans makes brute happy. he knows that evolutionary biology just turned brute into a machine that wants to protect pretty human females so they can procreate, but it still works, even while brute is being cynical about it. it even works while brute is cynically commenting on it to said human female, causing her to laugh, making it work.

What I'm trying to say here is a similar dynamic applies to becoming who you want to be. It doesn't matter that you think your desire is random, or if it were assigned to you in a universe of clockwork at the big bang. What matters is the being, and the doing.

And it doesn't have to be a Quest To Fulfill Your Inner Purpose, it just has to be something that makes you feel better about you when it's done. Taking a trash bag along and picking up litter on your way to the office. Minimal effort, but for it you get a nicer commute, and you changed from a commuter to a fully functional human (one who is making the world better, intentionally) for a few minutes and a bit of effort. It's a small change, but worth the effort.

You have already done this with learning. In fact you did it so well, you probably specialized in learning. Me too. But what I found was that as I over developed my intellectual side, I left the emotional part of my brain to atrophy. I rarely feel very much, and what I do feel is often very strong, but unexpected and often only loosely associated to the situation. For instance, I have a strong emotional response to efficiency. When things are done as well as possible, I find that calming, almost comforting. When things are done inefficiently, well, let's say I lots of negative feelings get triggered by that.

So I had this situation. I took years to figure out the why's and how's of my emotional triggers. And I would go from reasonable, thoughtful, interested me to the other version in a drop of a hat. Not that I would feel frustration and snap. I would feel frustration, and try to contain it, suppress it, and shortly after, explode. This never worked out well for me. I started a lot of fights, that I then promptly lost. I'm not much of a fighter. But I learned early that emotions are dangerous and often lead to pain, so my first solution was to suppress the emotional part of me, and emphasize the intellectual. I was doing this from preschool through my 20's.

One of the nicest things about basic training is how overwhelming the experience is. Whatever your defensive mechanisms, there is a team of dedicated professional drill sergeants there to break them.

For me, who thought of emotions as weaknesses, this was where I learned to use emotions as strengths. And going through the same thing with hundreds of other guys is a great way to overcome the devastation of having all my defensive mechanisms trashed.

But it took that long, drawn out inescapable stress to break my habit of over intellectualizing and processing to remove emotional content. When I was young, I would have been eagerly reading all you have written. Now, it seems familiar. It seems like the way I thought, before. Instead of reading and agreeing, when I read your posts, I start to agree, and then a "yeah, but" kicks in. This happens all the time with your posts. Like you are describing the intricacies of the room you are in in the minute details, but never look out the window, or go through the door.

Cold, sterile intellectualism is a good thing, and having a ready place to do that, easily, is a great thing. But it's not the only thing, and if all you allow your brain to do is process, you are failing to use half your brain's capacity.

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

Riggerjack wrote:
Sun Feb 11, 2018 9:57 am
For instance, I have a strong emotional response to efficiency. When things are done as well as possible, I find that calming, almost comforting. When things are done inefficiently, well, let's say I lots of negative feelings get triggered by that.
fuck yea. when humans say they'll get right onto that, and then brute has to stand there, watching them peck at the keyboard with 2 fingers, re-reading the first 3 letters of the word, and then hunting for the backspace key to correct themselves. brute is physically in pain when humans are inefficient.
Riggerjack wrote:
Sun Feb 11, 2018 9:57 am
When I was young, I would have been eagerly reading all you have written. Now, it seems familiar. It seems like the way I thought, before. Instead of reading and agreeing, when I read your posts, I start to agree, and then a "yeah, but" kicks in. This happens all the time with your posts.
it feels similar the other way around, although the order is different. upon reading a lengthy Riggerjack exposition, brute typically thinks "well, that didn't help at all, it wasn't even related to the question". then brute sits back and thinks "but it was a nice story, and brute had a good time reading it".

maybe brute should also say that he doesn't sit around all day, wallowing in nihilistic depression. he's typically having a jolly good time. but when asked in an intellectual manner about his thoughts on meaning and why he doesn't have a dog, brute is just too happy to explain his thoughts on the matter. and apparently, these thoughts are unfalsifiable, because so far no human has ever managed to disprove brute. these thoughts also seem very common, as pretty much every other broody teenaged human boy has had them, and written them down in an angsty manifest. this is why brute doesn't publish his thoughts in a broody manifest - they might be true, but they're also not that special and they're out there and most humans either already know this or want to forget or wouldn't be better off learning these things.

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

bryan wrote:
Sat Feb 10, 2018 4:45 pm
I think @BRUTE (and others) will enjoy this: https://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/post/ ... /the-tower
uuuuh not sure what brute just read, but he liked it.

Riggerjack
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Re: brute journal

Post by Riggerjack »

maybe brute should also say that he doesn't sit around all day, wallowing in nihilistic depression. he's typically having a jolly good time.
Yeah, that was my impression. I have no issue with the nihilism, and no need to convince you that life has Meaning, or meaning.

As you pointed out, it is the realm of teenagers, finding that life is more complicated than advertised. But there is more, beyond the nihilism, that most folks find more easily than you seem to, and I'm trying to point out where that is.

Begin awkward metaphor.

But, if your brain were a car, you can't drive there. You have to get out and walk. So I'm talking to a driver, trying to give directions that are completely unrelated to cars, it's going to require some interpretation on your part.

Awkward metaphor complete.

Good luck.

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