Existential Dread

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7Wannabe5
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Existential Dread

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

NOTE: this is a continuation of Existential Dread thread from Life is A Daring Adventure thread.



@jennypenny:


I always think of factoid that women with 7 or more children are highly unlikely to commit suicide. Any combination of 7 "babies" will almost certainly do the trick. I am useful/needed in the moment (every damn waking moment!!!) -> my life has meaning. Of course, self-aware self-care must also be taken into consideration.
Last edited by 7Wannabe5 on Wed Jun 29, 2022 4:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Jin+Guice
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Re: Life is a Daring Adventure | The Inspiration Thread

Post by Jin+Guice »

@7w5: But that's a philosophical copout? The solution to existential dread is to become so occupied/ exhausted/ overcommitted that you can ignore the existential dread? Effective, yes. But desirable...?




The more cultural norms and institutions I subvert or question, the more I realize why these norms and institutions exist. I think almost all of us, on some level, internalized the message that the meaning of life was to earn as much money as possible through paid work. The secret of this simple solution, and the simple solution of cultural norms almost all of us accept almost all of the time without thinking, is that they meet several deep human needs. Countercultural movements rarely fail because of a lack of disenfranchisement. The quiet revenge of the status quo is the lack of a suitable replacement for what is abandoned.

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Re: Life is a Daring Adventure | The Inspiration Thread

Post by chenda »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 8:55 am
I always think of factoid that women with 7 or more children are highly unlikely to commit suicide.
Survival bias 😂

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Re: Life is a Daring Adventure | The Inspiration Thread

Post by jennypenny »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:32 am
@7w5: But that's a philosophical copout? The solution to existential dread is to become so occupied/ exhausted/ overcommitted that you can ignore the existential dread? Effective, yes. But desirable...?
It's not occupied/exhausted/overcommitted, it's useful/needed/engaged with people with whom you have a strong, longterm connection. But I also think that yes, staying busy enough to outrun existential dread is an effective coping mechanism. Having the time for existential dread is a first world problem that is easily solved by staying engaged.

When I had a serious health issue several years ago, my therapist told me to make a bucket list and start checking things off. He said if I got to the bottom of the list and was still alive, make another list. Rinse, repeat. Ten years on, I find it profound advice that shouldn't need a crisis to trigger.

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Re: Life is a Daring Adventure | The Inspiration Thread

Post by chenda »

jennypenny wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 2:13 pm
+1. Mood follows action.

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Re: Life is a Daring Adventure | The Inspiration Thread

Post by Jin+Guice »

But doesn't the difference between whether it's occupied/ exhausted/ overcommitted or useful/ needed/ engaged, come from a perspective necessitated by some amount of self-knowledge, likely to come from some amount of self-reflection which may come with a certain amount of existential dread?


Let me see if I can explain my position in greater detail.

I agree with this:
jennypenny wrote:
Mon Jun 27, 2022 2:22 pm
The overexamined life is not worth living any more than the unexamined one.

And I agree that this is the dream:
jennypenny wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 2:13 pm
it's useful/needed/engaged with people with whom you have a strong, longterm connection.
But I disagree with this:
jennypenny wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 2:13 pm
But I also think that yes, staying busy enough to outrun existential dread is an effective coping mechanism. Having the time for existential dread is a first world problem that is easily solved by staying engaged.
The existential dread happens when engagement is lost or when you no longer know which direction to engage in. If you used to work yourself to exhaustion, which was how you felt engaged, and you suddenly decide you don't want to do that anymore, what fills that void? How do you derive purpose?

It's being vs. doing. Is someone who must always be doing really ok just being?


I'm not making an argument for longterm inaction. If you are sitting around thinking about shit you want to do all day, but paralyzed by how to do it bc of some technical detail, for sure, try some shit. I just don't think the search for purpose is necessarily best solved with distraction. Eventually the distraction is no longer effective or also loses its meaning and then the problem remains.

The journals I'm reading where people struggle for meaning are mostly post-retirement people who are out there trying shit? They just end up asking why they are doing what they are doing or where greater meaning comes from, now that it doesn't come from the bank account? Maybe I am missing the ones you are referring to?


jennypenny wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 2:13 pm
When I had a serious health issue several years ago, my therapist told me to make a bucket list and start checking things off. He said if I got to the bottom of the list and was still alive, make another list. Rinse, repeat. Ten years on, I find it profound advice that shouldn't need a crisis to trigger.
This is an excellent suggestion.

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Re: Life is a Daring Adventure | The Inspiration Thread

Post by AxelHeyst »

My issue with the strategy of distracting myself from existential dread is that, presumably at some point in my life, like on my deathbed, I'll no longer have the ability to outrun the existential questions. I'd much rather spend time as early as possible in my life wrestling with the deep questions, with the hope that when I do arrive at my deathbed I won't go "aw, hell, now that I think about it for five minutes, I totally wish I'd have _____ instead".

This is the whole point of philosophy, yeah? I mean yes, if you find yourself stuck in a loop inside your head, for god's sake do anything else, no need to think about it. But if you find yourself in a productive process of working through difficult existential issues while engaging meaningfully with the world... keep doing that. It's not an either or. It should be both and.

Some people need encouragement to do more (probably a majority here on the forum, myself included). Some people need encouragement to think more. Some people will cycle over and under the line. Self awareness is the key.

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Re: Life is a Daring Adventure | The Inspiration Thread

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Just as a personal anecdote, I have found there have been times where in order to avoid the existential malaise, I jump headlong into a personal project or hobby that I find very engaging. In my case, that's writing. So I'll start writing a novel and get so busy trying to plan out the plot and character arcs that I stop thinking about existential problems.

However, when I use writing as a coping mechanism like this, it becomes its own form of prison. If I stop writing or finish the project, the existential malaise creeps back in, and I find myself spiraling again. Therefore the writing becomes a prison because I can't stop.

This cycle started to happen to me again when I finished my last project, but instead of jumping onto something else, I forced myself to sit with it for several months and really try to get to the bottom of why I was feeling a certain way. Doing this made me aware of a bunch of internal conflicts I was suppressing and reading a bunch of philosophy helped me come to terms with those conflicts. I feel much more balanced and more self-aware because I forced myself to sit with the malaise and really think about it.

Undoubtedly, one can overthink things if that thinking is not paired with something actionable. But I also think temperament plays a large role in how people come to terms with the existential malaise of the human condition. An INTJ may need an existential framework simply by virtue of how their brain works in the same way an ESFP needs a lot of social interaction, and society benefits from the diversity of perspective and experience.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by jennypenny »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:24 am
My issue with the strategy of distracting myself from existential dread is that, presumably at some point in my life, like on my deathbed, I'll no longer have the ability to outrun the existential questions. I'd much rather spend time as early as possible in my life wrestling with the deep questions, with the hope that when I do arrive at my deathbed I won't go "aw, hell, now that I think about it for five minutes, I totally wish I'd have _____ instead".
That assumes that the only way resolve some of the deeper questions in life is through quiet contemplation. Why is it either/or? Can't one 'do' and 'think' at the same time? To me, the doing part takes some of the dread out of the thinking part. The dread is useless baggage anyway and not needed to contemplate the big questions in life.

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 9:32 am
Just as a personal anecdote, I have found there have been times where in order to avoid the existential malaise, I jump headlong into a personal project or hobby that I find very engaging. In my case, that's writing. So I'll start writing a novel and get so busy trying to plan out the plot and character arcs that I stop thinking about existential problems.

However, when I use writing as a coping mechanism like this, it becomes its own form of prison. If I stop writing or finish the project, the existential malaise creeps back in, and I find myself spiraling again. Therefore the writing becomes a prison because I can't stop.
This goes back to the comment about self-awareness. Still, it's not quite what I'm getting at.


I'm not sure if this is a gender issue (since women seem to understand my point more easily than men) or if it's an INTJ thing where every idea is discretely placed into individual boxes, but I'm struggling to understand why everything is so separate and the labels are so strict. For example, one of you might describe an activity of mine as 'doing' but in my mind I see it as 'being' ... the closer I get to flow states, the fuzzier the line gets between doing and being. It also means that while I'm deeply occupied, my mind might be quietly contemplating life's bigger questions in the background. How many of you have had moments of clarity in the shower, or on a walk, or during sex? Most of the things I'm working on I don't refer to as 'projects' -- it's too sterile a word. Sure, if I step back and look at my life at the moment, I have several 'projects' in various stages of completion, but I just view them as extensions of who I am at the moment ... as external manifestations of jennypenny circa 2022. In that way, it feels like 'being' as much as 'doing'.

Hopefully that explains why I don't think keeping busy is a way to avoid the big questions in life. To my mind, it's a way to act out who you are and what your thought processes are at the moment. If you can get to the place where 'being' and 'doing' meet, you'll start to find some clarity. You might also discover that you were asking the wrong questions, or that, in the end, it was more fun spending time walking on the beach or having sex instead of trying to resolve your existential crises.

You only have today. And if you wake up tomorrow, you have tomorrow. etc etc That's why I brought up the bucket list advice I received. Those big questions are enticing and definitely nag at the intellectual soul, and there's no harm in carving out a weekly walk/sail/ride/coffee to devote time to them. But to give them too much time is to miss the point of living, and possibly miss opportunities to stumble across some of the answers you seek.
Last edited by jennypenny on Wed Jun 29, 2022 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by Lemur »

This thread reminds me that I have "The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life (2015)" by Sheldon Solomon coming in through my library...been on my to do reading list for a while. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory

Might be worth a read. Think of it is a precursor to Ernest Becker's work. Though I have not read the former either...just heard it in passing many times before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death and in some interviews, Solomon basically expands upon this work with empirical research.

Funny enough just yesterday I was thinking about this topic now that my Sister in law and her two kids live with us...again. And things got so chaotic with a 1st grader and two toddlers running around and the cats running from hiding spot to hiding spot that I thought to myself man with my 9-5 job plus managing this...how could one even find time for the existential stuff? My thoughts were really as such from @jennypenny:
Having the time for existential dread is a first world problem that is easily solved by staying engaged.
Perhaps my form of active nihilism is just jumping from thing to thing to thing...always doing something in the present but also just having something to always look forward to. I see nothing wrong with this and I also take no offense if this is a form of escapism either. Escaping from what exactly anyway? Thinking? Because those neurons fire whether you want them to or not. None of us escape death anyway....Is it perhaps a waste of time to deal with existential dread. But! It may be necessary that everyone at least once in their life, or on occasion, revisit this topic to make necessary life changes. If I recall, some of the stoics would practice thinking about there death as a morning ritual.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by Ego »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 9:32 am
Undoubtedly, one can overthink things if that thinking is not paired with something actionable. But I also think temperament plays a large role in how people come to terms with the existential malaise of the human condition. An INTJ may need an existential framework simply by virtue of how their brain works in the same way an ESFP needs a lot of social interaction, and society benefits from the diversity of perspective and experience.
-The brain, like the rest of the body, is malleable (neuroplasticity), so temperament is malleable. An INTJ may not always be an INTJ (unless they allow themselves to be convinced of the falsehood that their brain is the one part of their body that is not influenced by their environment).

-Overthinking is a form of ruminative thinking. Excessive rumination causes depression and anxiety.

-Much like happiness and laughter, depression and anxiety are contagious. Ruminative thinking is largely to blame for this contagiousness.

-Depression and anxiety are exploding right now. While diversity of perspectives is important, a contagious maladaptive coping mechanism may not be a good thing to spread.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by candide »

jennypenny wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:23 pm
Hopefully that explains why I don't think keeping busy is a way to avoid the big questions in life. To my mind, it's a way to act out who you are and what your thought processes are at the moment. If you can get to the place where 'being' and 'doing' meet, you'll start to find some clarity. You might also discover that you were asking the wrong questions, or that, in the end, it was more fun spending time walking on the beach or having sex instead of trying to resolve your existential crises.
Spot on.

The being/doing nexus was my way out of my times of crisis. It wasn't rumination.

There are times when just getting into nature can get us to this here, or love in its various forms, but another big one is creation. I have noted this as fulfillment-via-craft here, though I'm not sure how many people saw it, or saw it as applying at the time

viewtopic.php?p=257640#p257640

(If nothing else, skip down to the Peter Korn quotes in the "Fulfilled" section. But of course if I thought the other writing was pointless, I wouldn't have written it).

===

Also, I'm going to go for the jugular here and point out that rumination just creates words. And words suck. They are traps, and leaning on Christopher Alexander from A Pattern Language fame, the good qualities in life are not only more important than words (which should have been enough) they are more objective than the words. Good god, don't take my word for it. Here's a write up I did of the opening of Alexander's A Timeless Way of Building, which knocked my socks off on this point:

Many of the best works on daoism don't even mention the word "dao." This makes perfect sense. After all, the daodeing, though it is a book that uses the word dao still begins with the warning
Dao called Dao is not the eternal Dao
Names that can be named are not eternal names.
One book that is long on daoism, but short on using the word is The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander. After the opening pages of the book, which read as mysticism [1], Alexander proceeds in pages 29 to 40 to prove the need for the mystical language by giving a demonstration of the inadequacy of language to describe what makes spaces wonderful to be in and around. To begin with, he tries to use the dichotomy of alive/lifeless:
Things which are living may be lifeless; nonliving things may be alive. A man who is walking and talking can be alive; or he can be lifeless. Beethoven's last quartets are alive; so are the waves at the ocean shore; so is a candle flame; a tiger may be more alive, because more in tune with its own inner forces, than a man (pg 29).
But alive is just a metaphor, and that leaves the word too imprecise.
The metaphor makes us believe that we have found a word to grasp the quality without a name. But we can only use the word to name the quality, when we already understand the quality (pg 30).
So, he tries the word "whole," but then finds that whole implies enclosure. The word is more cramped than the quality (Quality?)

So, he tries "comfortable." But you can become so comfortable that you become lifeless, too sheltered.

So, he tries "free." But finds that could be "too theatrical: a pose, a form, a manner" (pg 34). So-called "free style" art is often not whole, and certainly rarely comfortable.

So . . . "a word which helps restore the balance is the word exact" (pg 34). That's an odd turn for mysticism, no? Well, so be it. Alexander uses the example of trying to add a table to a landscape so that blackbirds would made us of it. To make it work, you need to make it exact in ways that work for the birds. If you keep observing and adjusting, you'll probably get there.

Of course "exact" is loaded down with too much linguistic baggage as well -- too mechanical, cold, cookie-cutter.

So. . . egoless? But we're not trying to efface the creator. The creator has forces that need to be balanced harmoniously as well.

So . . . eternal? No.
It hints at a religious quality. The hint is accurate. And yet . . . It is not mysterious. It is above all ordinary. What makes it eternal is its ordinariness. The word "eternal" cannot capture that (pg 39).
As a person who had made a study of daoism/quietism for some time before reading these passages -- which, I had read after A Pattern Language -- and thought I had a good grasp on the subject, I was greatly surprised and then moved by this argument that the dao is unnameble because it is more precise than any word we can use [2]. I felt my mind put up resistance to the idea, but quickly realized it was the truth [3].

============

[1] For example
There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named. pg ix.
The dao meets architecture and city planning.

[2] See Sarah Perry for a discussion of Alexander's sense of objectivism.

One,
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/04/06/deep-laziness/

two,
https://carcinisation.com/2015/03/30/centers/

three
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/08/04/t ... ss-museum/

[3] My first understanding of dao all had to do with pace. I noticed the beauty in those who take their time. I saw it in my grandparents, and I saw it the unfolding of nature over a season. I now realize that one takes ones time in order to make sure their is precision where it matters. I system needs double checks and thus needs slack.

viewtopic.php?p=257351#p257351

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by prudentelo »

Life is not meant to be easy and you are meant to be unsatisfied.

The Japanese knew.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by AxelHeyst »

jennypenny wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:23 pm
That assumes that the only way resolve some of the deeper questions in life is through quiet contemplation. Why is it either/or? Can't one 'do' and 'think' at the same time? To me, the doing part takes some of the dread out of the thinking part. The dread is useless baggage anyway and not needed to contemplate the big questions in life.
Ah, I thought you were advocating doing stuff as a way to not think about the deeper questions in life. But it sounds like we mostly agree. I don't really care how one approaches dealing with the deeper questions in life - while sitting on a cushion in full lotus for three days, in the middle of a drug-fueled orgy, while making art, during a boring conference call - whatever floats your boat. Most of my life epiphanies happen in the 90 second post coital window, but the bulk of my active thinking happens while making/fixing stuff, walking, or writing. Like I said:
AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:24 am
But if you find yourself in a productive process of working through difficult existential issues while engaging meaningfully with the world... keep doing that. It's not an either or. It should be both and.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by candide »

In theory, there is no difference between practice and theory. In practice, there is.
Not Yogi Berra
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/practice-and-theory/

Again, I drew on people much smarter than myself to show that practice is always more precise than theory. Alexander felt that it then became appropriate to apply the word objective, and while I followed him to attempt a bit of shock effect, it might only be appropriate in architecture and design, if there.

(The Alexander/Eisenman debate, recommended:
http://www.katarxis3.com/Alexander_Eise ... e%20Debate
)

Let's jettison "objective", and just stick to "precise". Someone might be closer than they think to where they need to be, but getting it precisely right, at least what is right for them, matters. What the "and/both" stated above means in practice and each specific case matters.

After all, what does and/both mean? Possible candidates I can think of. . .
* They are always the same -- while we'd have no disagreement going, experience shows this isn't right
* a sequence
* a 50/50 blend? Even, then, what does that mean? Time spent? What, with a timer? Estimates of exhaustion?
* what feels right. Well, that's just subjectivity, now isn't it?

I do not recommend trying to make an explicit protocol of how you are going to make theories about how you are going to find meaning and avoid dread. I think the differences it takes to get this precisely right are more minor than can be captured by a human linguistic theory. (I will hold off judgement models created with the aid of brain scans, HUGE algorithms, and highly bio-tailored drugs). But as for words, they are not the path.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by jennypenny »

@candide -- It's interesting that you agreed with me about the doing part, and espouse the practice part, and then write longs blocks of text on the theory part. You also stress the importance of certain words (like 'precise') yet have mentioned in different threads that, essentially, words are useless/don't matter/are a hinderance. I think maybe you have the theory of practice down, but not enough practice at the practice part?


I want to push back on something someone else said since I think I'm being misunderstood, but I have to think about it some more so I don't misstate my opinion again. I will say that precision is never part of any plan of mine. To me, that's the '20' in Pareto that's not worth my time. It may happen accidentally, but it's never a goal. As Dan Pink basically argues, 'B' students have the most fun in life.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by candide »

@jennypenny

The realities and practices themselves are precise, the words are not, and cannot be, precise enough to model (edit: do the modelling).

Everyone knows more than what they can explain, at least in certain domains. This causes great annoyance to those in charge, as so this reality is very often ignored, and the praise and attempts at precision go in the verbal modeling.
jennypenny wrote:
Sat Jul 02, 2022 6:54 am
I think maybe you have the theory of practice down, but not enough practice at the practice part?
I don't think me writing a few effort posts is enough to indicate that. And while the the posts are longer than what this medium trains us for, they were still shorter than, say, the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) -- Laozi, what a hypocrite! -- or the relevant Timeless Way of Building by Alexander.

I'd write more to defend myself, but I realize that if a long block of text is seen it will work against my claim.
Last edited by candide on Sat Jul 02, 2022 8:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by jacob »

candide wrote:
Sat Jul 02, 2022 8:13 am
I'd write more to defend myself, but I realize that if a long block of text is seen it will work against my claim.
I think we can suspend judgment for a moment on that account. (The mark of an educated man is the ability to hold two conflicting thoughts simultaneously ... and all that.) This may be tangential/adjacent but one thing that bugs me deeply about unitivity claims is when they're accompanied by simple constructs/explanations or none at all. It breaks with the whole "include and transcend". I think a zen master should be able to explain a zen koan without hitting the student with a stick. Words will likely ruin the koan or provide an inaccurate description and thus provide the wrong lesson ... however, it would demonstrate that the master has some idea even if words are inadequate. The stick is too easy and too cheap of a signal.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by jennypenny »

@candide -- I was not trying to offend. Post away.

I know forumites like to analyze/model everything and for the most part it's a productive exercise. I'm not arguing any of your points. But when people start using words like 'dread', I think it's time to take a break from analyzing and get back to living. Once balance is restored and the dread is shed, then turn back to ruminating when it's more a enjoyable and productive exercise.

I'll tap out since I've lost interest in overanalyzing everything. I just hope my comments will encourage some forumites to come up for air once in a while. If you're feeling dread, you're doing it wrong. Life really is beautiful on the other side.

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Re: Existential Dread

Post by candide »

@jennypenny

For what it's worth, I can't think of any way I disagree with any point you've made on this thread. My longest text here was an attempt to expand and translate one of your points.

Why would I have thought a translation would be necessary? I just thought some readers might be bringing in the baggage from our wider culture of thinking in objectivity/subjectivity and using that binary to always privileged the objective. What you're writing about is that fusion at the cutting edge of reality, as Pirsig wrote about. These cutting edges are pre-verbal, prior to object and subject, and giving us moments of a deep empathy where we don't know where the tool, activity, or person ends and where we begin. That's the good stuff.

And if anyone wanted to dismiss that because it didn't sound objective, I wanted to follow Alexander's path showing how the cutting edge is more objective than the discourse people want to call objective.

But yeah, "precise" is a really bad word for the Timeless Quality. It can't be the final word we land on when describing it, but that is just more demonstration that the words will fail. All the words are gestures, not replacements.

==

I'll move any personal defense that is based on my biography over to my journal.

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