Do you ever notice that thoughts tend to take their course in the same way? Maybe when you talk about certain subjects, you get stuck in a familiar pattern, a familiar rut?
I have a crazy, schizophrenic idea.
I find that there are a lot of important discussions going on today. For example, many people are concerned with political or social issues, such as racial or gender equality, the wage gap, and similar concerns.
The problem I face is that, as soon as I think about issues like these, I find myself thrown in one direction or another– in fact, I generally end up cursing to myself, or feeling upset.
The words we use concerning certain issues can be quite loaded. For example, I bet you can think of occasions when terms like, for example, “shine” or “yellow”– which should be, in essence, harmless, might not be appreciated.
I feel that a lot of the trouble comes from how we put things, and that one word or term seems to suggest another. People can be very attenuated about words that are used– sometimes so much so that meanings beneath are lost.
We need some Stanford linguistics grad student to come up with some new ways of putting things, that are neutral and have no connotations, so we can talk about charged issues again without offending one another.
