Love Temporal:

Intro

I am nullstep. But, nullstep is a new word that can be many things, so you can call me ‘the nullsteppa’ to be particular. One goal of a nullstep is to make the world a better place— and this only happens through action.

The world is mighty big though! Making this whole thing better for the everyone all at once is no simple action, but we think we’ve found a way that addresses the root in way that may even fix the branches. I think we can fix the world at our vocabulary.

We live in a world filled with many other different people. And while this can be scary at points— I think we all share at least most essential values, like family and love.

But if you look at the world, you can tell we don’t do well all cooperating even though our values all overlap. What would a conversation between aphrodite, 月下老人, oshun, xochiquetzal, and kama even look like? Perhaps it would put the most exciting Real Housewives episode to shame (the food would be banging though— before it gets thrown).

I’d wager we humans have the same issues. There’s many reasons for communications break down, but the one I’ll address briefly is—

Our other senses get in the way.

It’s easy to get distracted when the packaging isn’t what you’ve been trained to be used to. This can breed confusion and miscommunication— and that confusion can lead to actions not meeting expectations or wrong expectations. This will easily lead to conflicts.

An unexpected packaging unfortunately leads to gaps in empathy. So even if there’s a shared value, I believe our old gods had varied personalities— and that doesn’t even begin to explore the challenge of relating to others through aspects like aesthetic, language, terminology, food, and traditions.

As the world grows flatter, let’s not spread ourselves, but instead dig deeper. And I think this may happen naturally somewhat, if we have the right words.

Btw, isn’t it funny how everyone had a ‘god‘ for love. Hmm.

Finding the Right One

“Dang it, it was right on the tip of my tongue. What’s the word?? I just had it—”

Don’t you hate that? It really bugs us as humans when we can’t find the right word. It’s almost like it’ll irk you at your core— because I theorize it actually does! We are cognitive beings, and we love our cognition, but without the right word your brain machine gets a big wrench stuck in it. We hate that.

Lately I’ve begun to wonder if societies plateau based on the vocabulary we have available. How much farther can one get if you lack the means to share your thoughts? The conflict alone will stop you.

If we’re to take the expression—

“As a person, all I have is my word” seriously, then not finding the right word leaves us as empty handed as you could possibly be. It will leave you feeling lost outside our collective cognitive cloud which we all inhabit. We can also describe this cloud as “a matrix” of a type. And trust me, it’s pretty rough finding yourself outside of that.

Finding the right word is so essential. We do not like being misinterpreted in our spoken intention, and we don’t like to underserve ourselves either by not providing the correct one. Now how does it feel when you’re right about to give up and that word comes to you?

Spectacular right?

Exactly.

Society & Vocabulary

I think some words represent larger ideas, and in that way these words works as concepts. They communicate grander ideas that speak to things which are integral to us and our humanity. Ideas many of us can find shelter in, together. And it’s a bit easier to come and grow together and collaborate when sheltering.

I use the word shelter with intention. These words that shelter us do so because they imply grounding concepts that represent us. And in that representation, we feel protected because we know we aren’t isolated. And numbers are power. Every human holds this truth in them from way back. Whether it’s the force of thousands of feet marching towards a goal, or the shout of several thousand voices, the power held by those vibrations are embedded deeply in us all.

Sometimes finding the right word is hard, but what if the word doesn’t even exist yet?

Well, we’d likely grab the closest word…but you know in your heart when something isn’t right. That feeling of a word not being right sits with us. I think it sits with us at a depth we don’t consciously realize, because it unnerves us, right?

Sometimes we need new words. I use need purposefully here. Because without new words, I theorize at least the part of humanity we label western may fail itself otherwise. I think that need comes from a deeper place. A place where our thoughts and our feelings originate.

On Thoughts, Recognition, & Time

What are thoughts?

Yeah, like a thought you have in your head. What are they made of? I think they are really just clouds of what we could call “words”, flashes of images, and clusters of feelings that exist in our heads. They are kinda formless right? Even illustrated, we picture them as these fogs or cloudy things.

Ever tried to grab at smoke, or fog, or a cloud? Pretty tough to get an hold of it right? Our cognition has the ability to grab these clouds, flip through them like a book, re-order them if need be, and make sense of them. constantly. Our cognition is pretty amazing— to be able to grasp these wispy clouds of things and make them into something. But that amazing thing travels nowhere unless we put it into language either through speech or through motion. Even then, thoughts need impressions from others to survive, much like a newborn needs touch.

Vocabulary and spoken word give us power to constrain and package the thoughts we have in our head, so it can travel, be recognized, and perceived by other minds and maybe influence the entire world.Much like fictional wizards casting a spell. In this way, magic is kinda real. Neat.

Our thoughts are powerful in this way, and i think we see that our thoughts connect to something deeper. they are a part of us. and maybe thats why not being taken at our word hurts us in the same way that cutting your hand brings recognition of damage through a sensation of pain to your brain. I think thoughts are more like—

[illu with bubble coming from chest and head]

Imagine a group of people all with a common frustration. A group of people, all rallying behind a common frustration that’s felt, but communicated inaccurately, will never be reasoned with because our common means of communicating will be mismatched. they’ll also be able to feel it themselves. that tension. remember, we know when it’s right. that wrong energy comes back to you. a plucked string reverberates forwards but also back.

If we’re unable to express ourselves” 🚫

(—wait let’s back up. Let’s redo that sentence…cause what do we mean by the word ourselves? I wanna be more specific…)

“If we’re unable to express our thoughts” ✅

(Huh…isn’t that an interesting equivalency. Ok, back to business)

If we’re unable to express our thoughts✨(ting) that leads to frustration and that can come spilling out into the world in a number of ways.

The Persistent Necessity of Art and Playfulness

I think what is described in the previous section is why art, playfulness, is to be respected, protected, and made a vocation that can sustain people. We will always need art and artists.

Why?

We’ve barely even learned how to speak yet, in the greater scheme (wait, who’s scheme??). We fall into petty and avoidable conflicts still while speaking the same ‘fully functioning’ languages. We’re not done learning how to communicate to and with each other in ways that are effective. Art is an exploration in how we communicate things. It’s communication Research & Design (R&D). Any organization that cuts R&D will grow noticeably stagnant eventually. Intention to the ‘noticeably’. Art is using a medium that may not be words and therefore moves through some other dimension to be perceived, to communicate a message.

And I know a little of R&D as I used to work at RAND some years ago, so at least some insight rubbed off.

and maybe more importantly, art is perhaps our strongest language to communicate with each other through time— temporally. We’ve been time traveling for a very long time actually, in our ways.

There’s a quiet and shy man, in his apartment in […van gough reference..] who’s speaking beauty to so many, and stands to share with many many more. The ability for art to do this is unmatched. And sometimes I wonder if the feeling generated by us currently, and all that admiration from the future will be future could generate a force towards that man and his art, providing him with what he needed to go as long as he did— forging beauty even though anguish was suffered to him.

Why do I hold this wonder? Well, a plucked string reverberates forwards, but then back. So it makes a weird poetic sense that love that which moves down a timeline finds it’s way back up, in some way.

I’ll end this section with the beginning of a personal story.

The Third Time was the Charm, Francis — Art con’d

I didn’t care much for The Great Gatsby in high school, and still didn’t care in college, and it took a decade or so when someone advised me to read it after moving to New York City and living here for a bit. I did so— and I cried a whole night because I realized myself a hopeless Jay Gatz of a person, chasing an ideal in a city that will constantly remind you of how little you may have in your purse or wallet.

It was the end that got me, if you’d like to know. Even though misguided, he shared so much with those around him, then barely anyone was there for him. I felt that. In ways that tore through me— because this world forces some of us into that position of chasing and overshare for the slightest bit of human recognition, even though we know it’s misguided. I would have attended, Jay.

And while I still live in NYC, it helped me correct course about what I valued during the time I re-read it.

I would find myself sheltering from a rough storm passing through the city for a bit with a funny someone named Francis from Minnesota. He didn’t make me feel bad for all the tears which was kind because the tears were cathartic. Funny guy, that one. Thank you, Francis.

Art allows for this. And hey, maybe it’s not for everyone but fuggetaboutit— cause through this model i think we see how even people we call introverts are really social humans, just in another way.

A society that makes space for curiosity and play is a place moving towards mental health. We’ve all seen a curious child. Let them play, even if it’s a different way. Because who of us knows everything? Maybe they just discovered something cool we don’t know— because the cool things we don’t know will look different. Remember, “R&D”. This play is often fruitful in ways that aren’t so apparent at first, or even at median. And even if the product is only joy, those things too shall make.

And, sometimes it does pays to think different.

Either way, you don’t lose.

An Ad-man’s Lie

I didn’t plan for this section, but it came out of me. The previous sections helped me understand a problem I have with that popular Trump slogan— “Make America Great Again”. No matter where you stand politically, there is no again. There just isn’t. Just think about it logically. An idiom or not, it doesn’t matter. Time moves forward.

Moments we’ve had before, we’ll never have again. Each ‘now’ we experience is significant in that way because it is unique. And this next thought is more solemn but— there’s people we’ll never see again.