Why do people have the desire to talk?

I somewhat agree . . .

Perhaps because nothing is as it seems - even internally. So to externalize our experience of our ongoing internal dialog which defines our self-concept in a relative and rudimentary way, we are able to hear ourselves and others are able to listen and provide feedback and exchange to reinforce the self-concept of both parties involved.

Sometimes we do not have the desire to talk to someone because we perceive a threat to our self-concept.

Other times we have a desire to talk to someone because the connection we perceive we have with them gives us hope that they can help build our self-concept.

Because nothing is as it seems - we become uncomfortable - we seek to clarify our own reality using our mind - emotion drives us to seek a rational resolution - in other words we desire to seek the disappearance of a symptom or condition that leads to discomfort and further confusion and subsequently we have the desire to talk. This makes me wonder whether talking(and communication(information[language])) once we understand it is mainly driven by emotions; I say this because sometimes we are seeking a rational conclusion to a faulty piece of logic contained within our mind.

encode_decode

I shall dub you Mr. List. :mrgreen:

Yes, I like how it speaks to/points out the inter-connectedness of humans.

…And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Reminds me of the below:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

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I have in my mind the personal desire to talk and as well the social desires to talk
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Do you mean intimate conversation and social chit chat?

 
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- with social acceptance we develop these new desires that are collective and sit next to our very own desires. Some of these desires that are social require belief to come into being - I think this is the case with a lot of religion and science.
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Oh, I think I get it now.  Collective is a good word for it I think. Yes, shared beliefs create a really strong social order. Could be highly beneficial or highly detrimental as in Nazism.
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We desire the truth 
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Do we really, do you think? Or perhaps what we desire is our own made-up version of the truth to fit in with our beliefs and desires. Perhaps I am more skeptical than is best for me to be. 
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- and when we find something that makes sense to us we tend to lend it some belief - any institution is just a case of what makes the most sense to the most people. When we are not happy with any given institution that has become a big part of us we tend to look for answers elsewhere. 
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Exactly.  Do you think that this shows a good thing, a wise and intelligent thing? I don't know. I just want your estimation.
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Through talk or writ people are able to produce or maintain their self and sometimes a new institution is born . . .
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True ~~ and too many of them for my liking.  Well, that would depend on what they were.  Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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We desire to talk because we are basically all social creatures, interconnected with one another though at times we may not realize this. It is through the talking, the sharing, that we sometimes come to know this for the first time, each time."

We are indeed social creatures and our social desires are not our own - our desire to talk can be both our own and social - personal and social.
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I don't quite follow you here. I may not be *seeing* something here but why make a distinction between the two -  our own and social?  

 
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When a person wants to know themselves they are trying to remove the social noise from their internal environment.
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This I do get. Things like meditation, reflection, solitude...ad continuum.
Also, others can clue us in about who we are if we are willing to listen.  Again, No Man is an Island.
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The overproduction of reality was a problem that I was facing at a simpler level and I think that through communication we are somehow able to deconstruct these overproduction's and store these results mentally as some sort of reference/s that propagate both ways to what is being referenced and to the reference/s.
[/quote]
I'm probably wrong here. I've been wrong one or two times in my life ( <img src="/uploads/default/original/2X/7/7fc2d9cf701d2c2c22729238172e5be83405063f.gif" width="15" height="17" alt=":evilfun:" title="Evil Fun"/> ) but are you plainly put, speaking about *thinking too much*? Please explain if you care to. 
Well, then again, an *overproduction of reality* can also  be, to me, when everything (reality) becomes too pressing at the same time and overwhelming.  When that time happens I think that we need *down* time quiet time , a long long walk alone, ALONE TIME and being sure to take all of the bats out of the belfry so to speak -- QUIETING OF THE MIND time. It so feng shuis the mind.
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"The desire to talk, at times, the need to talk, is spiritually/emotionally speaking, as important as eating and drinking."

"It is nourishing for the human psyche. If we are unable in some ways to communicate, to *relate* to others, we can shrivel up and die."

Our emotional state then becomes a type of "it all OK" or "its not all OK" flag. When all is OK then the white flag is raised and when all is not OK then the battle flag is raised. Talking becomes the medium to help each person ascertain their social state. 
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HMMM... Maybe I'm misunderstanding you were.  I was speaking of a more profound sharing. 
Are you speaking here in terms of a *rant and rave* thing?
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So as we continue our exploration we encounter many other things that are related to our desire to talk
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.

Yes and to read read read.

 
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From here we start developing abilities to ask the right questions - the right questions are related to our own desire and what is socially acceptable to ask.
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I don't understand your *socially-acceptable to ask* unless it is a question which is highly personal and that can be in the mind of the beholder.  
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When we ask the wrong question our ability "to *relate* to others" becomes diminished. It also follows that for the answers - .
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You have to establish what the wrong questions are, what YOU mean by the wrong question, encode_decode.
Are there wrong questions? Who knows. It might depend on the individual being asked, no?
Some people are more open and some people are more reserved and private. But I'm not sure what you are speaking of here. 
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if we do not offer answers when asked questions then our ability "to *relate* to others" becomes diminished
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Are we speaking philosophy here or people asking questions on a more personal level?
Explain yourself, [b]Mr. List! [/b]  :stuck_out_tongue: 


Take care

encode_decode

True as for the first part.

Since when does it happen in that way?

What do you mean by *in what way?

So are you saying that self and ego are negatives and detrimental?
Or are you speaking of those who, for instance, have conversations which ONLY center around their self, needs, desires, world?

That’s an interesting and provoking statement. I could be flip and just say perhaps because our ancestors - way back - way back! -shared the same primordial soup, gook. But it’s a good question to ponder. Aside from needing one another in a universal sense to take away the sting of aloneness, though those self-imposed alonenesses can be wonderful, we also did evolve at some point from other little social creatures, well not from them but away from them. lol #-o You know what I mean.

This what is done in ILP, right? It’s a useful tool to discover our beliefs/perspectives and hopefully how much they are or may not be in line with reality.

But I realize that you are speaking of the more personal sense here.
I agree with you. I think it can be beneficial to call to mind conversations, any kind of interactions with others. We can get to know who we are by the way in which we relate to others. It also shows what we are missing from ourselves.

True. I don’t recall if I was using the universal we or not. But that’s true.
We desire to be made whole and be in harmony with all things.
Many of us do anyway.
I can agree with your friend ~ and ~ sometimes we are dictators to our own selves.
I think that the more patient we can learn to be with ourselves, the more patient we will tend to be with others - and visa versa.

But isn’t there also harmony within the choice two people make to agree to disagree with graciousness?
But I understand how you are using the word - a form of achieved synergy.

I am not a particular fan of red though pomegranate seeds are beautiful, they shimmer like rubies in the light.
But I suppose that that isn’t true either. I do like red in certain things of nature. I do not like red when it comes to fashion. (no idle chit chat here).
But I think that if I were to describe how certain colors make me feel, you would know my sense of qualia toward it.
Language allows us to tell others how we feel if we really feel it.

Sounds pretty complete and harmonious to me. :angelic-blueglow:
Sufficient!? Having one Reese’s peanut butter cup is sufficient. (well, no, I’m lying here. :evilfun: ) :evilfun: But it shall suffice.

Flow on.

Arcturus Descending

A few thoughts come to mind. Unless I am losing my mind - that is also a possibility.

I wonder what one could do about it if they were losing their mind. I somewhat agree with WendyDarling here - there is degree of possibility that a person can identify when they are losing their mind. I think too that there is a degree as to which somebody could imagine that they are losing their mind too.

When it comes to my mind, I always allow for the possibility that I could lose it. This is not something that I suggest to everyone. Everybody should exercise their mind to a degree - those that don’t might not be aware that they are losing it. Those that use their mind very intensely could be called extreme thinkers; I believe these people could also lose their mind - especially the part that relates to being social.

Are there some questions in life . . . that by searching for the answer . . . can make you lose your sanity?

:laughing:

Arcturus Descending

I asked: Why would I lose my desire to talk? And you responded:

Is it rhetorical indeed? Sometimes people do though lose their desire to talk. Whether it starts out based on an anti-social tendency or not might hold some clues. Sometimes a person just wants to quiet their mind . . . sometimes a person is so into what they are doing that talking is not an option for them.

There are very likely many different reasons a person might lose their desire to talk. Might I remind you of:

I wonder how much we don’t know about about the compulsion to talk.

Yes but it need not be fear that compels us to talk - I know that you know that. Sometimes we are so excited to share something with someone for what ever reason that we can not contain that something we desire to share so we must get it out by sharing it - in turn talking about it. So many reasons to feel compelled to talk.

One reason for feeling compelled to talk I often wonder about: Why the hell do people offer their opinions at inappropriate times? I might add; and are not usually asked for their opinions in the first place. You know those times when you just want someone to listen to you but they insist on interrupting with an opinion.

:angry-screaming:

Arcturus Descending

So much to discover that we are not aware of . . . Mr List.

Isn’t that so very true? Why is that I wonder? I am still curious to this day what it is that makes me interested in some of the things that I am interested in.

Is there anything that you are interested in that you can not work out the reason why you are interested in it?

It puts my mind to a quote that I have used recently from Wikipedia:

A deep space of infinite different possible reasons to talk perhaps - many different possible conversational outcomes.

That does not sound like you . . .

:-k

Because nothing is as it seems . . .

Are we in constant denial of our individual reality? We have this propensity to talk for many reasons that might totally slip past us undetected. A need to question existence and why it is that we are here and a part of this reality.

We register these words in our memory or we write down these words so that they become a part of history - we seem to be obssesed with information and conveying it to each other from our memory or history.

Because nothing is as it seems; it seems we are in constant denial of our individual reality - constantly questioning, thinking, reading and writing among others things and to what end? Maybe we do seek through communication to build our self-concept or maybe we are just the infinite speaking to the infinite and the medium that we use to convey our words is finite and usually temporary in nature.

8-[

Arcturus Descending

Mr List also thought John Donne’s meditation was a great touch and how it “speaks to/points out” the inter-connectedness of humans. It is great how one thing can remind us of another as in the case of the snippet from Martin Niemoller.

Intimate conversation and social chit chat are two types of conversation that are always taking place somewhere in the world. It is likely that I am speaking of the personal desire to talk and as well the social desires to talk in my own context here - I was not being specific and what I wrote possibly contains some imprecision. I will however elaborate a little to add a little more precision:

A personal desire could be Independence which is the desire for self-reliance but sometimes we might like others to see us as such, in which case it is probably a social desire. Tranquility could be considered personal and is the desire for emotional calm. To connect and to be taken seriously would be two social desires; we want to feel connected to others, and we want others to take us seriously and to show us respect; we want to be listened to and to have our words considered for their merits rather than being discounted or ignored.

As you are more or less saying, shared beliefs can create a really strong social order and may be highly beneficial or highly detrimental for what ever reason. Further I am saying that with social acceptance we develop these new desires that are collective and sit next to our very own desires; what I mean here is that social desires need to be developed and strengthened for the social creature in question to keep them strong because as is often the case the said social creature is seeking a strong social bond as well as strong social order.

I think the skeptic is also looking for the truth in an around about way. The ability to question the validity of the arguments of others id est what other people are saying, I think is quite healthy. The only reason why we ask questions is because we do not know the answers; this can be further sub-categorized into extending the only reason into something like - it sounds close to the truth but I remain skeptical because it just does not sound quite right and in-turn I still do not completely have the truth. In any case what we desire is our own made-up version of the truth to fit in with our beliefs and desires as you say.

My estimation is . . . that it indeed . . . shows a good thing . . . a wise and intelligent thing . . . when: we find something that makes sense to us, we tend to lend it some belief - any institution is just a case of what makes the most sense to the most people. When we are not happy with any given institution that has become a big part of us we tend to look for answers elsewhere. This plays into the hand of skepticism and as long as an individual is careful then the grass can be verified as greener on the other side of the fence, figuratively speaking.

We are indeed social creatures and our social desires are not our own, they are interconnected as you suggest; our desire to talk can be both our own and social. We desire to talk because we are basically all social creatures, interconnected with one another and it is through the talking, the sharing, that we sometimes come to know this for the first time; that you come to know this for the first time; that I come to know this for the first time. Hopefully this makes things a little clearer.

Again, No Man is an Island.

An overproduction of reality is when reality becomes overwhelming and sometimes our logic and emotions wreak havoc here. When that time happens we do need down time or quiet time, potentially a long walk alone; ALONE TIME and being sure to take all of the bats out of the belfry so to speak.

QUIETING OF THE MIND time.

Socially speaking when all is OK then the white flag is raised and when all is not OK then the battle flag is raised. Talking or yelling what ever the case may be becomes the medium to help each person ascertain their social state - sometimes we need profound sharing other times we need to put the amour on and go to battle(rant and rave).

There are plainly questions that are socially acceptable to ask and those which are not; as you say some people are more open and some people are more reserved and private - you wont really know if you ask a question and you don’t get an answer - I would not let it bother you.

If we do not offer answers when asked questions then our ability “to relate to others” becomes diminished; I am saying especially in the case of a forum that if you do not answer a question that was asked of you then the person who asked the question in the first place may not bother asking any further questions of you - and may not even bother adding any more input where you are concerned - this is mostly the case when you do not know them personally.

We should consider when others agree or disagree with us, whether that should bother us or not.

I affirm that we should know when to . . . let it go . . . as it could be for our very own benefit.

Are there some questions in life . . . that by searching for the answer . . . can make you lose your mind?

:smiley:

Why do people have the desire to remain silent?

Could it be fear of what is said, and that words, ideas, thoughts, can be dangerous and damaging? “Honest truth” can be too much to handle? If exposing one’s thoughts would mark you as “bad, evil, immoral, amoral” then would that be reason enough to stop talking? How about not speaking about topics and subjects which you know little or nothing about? Is it useful to speak from a perspective of ignorance? Or ought people only speak about the things and facts they know with degrees of certainty?

encode_decode

If you are sick, see symptoms, where do you go? Doctor.
If you sense that you may be losing your mind, where do you go? Psychiatrist or psychologist.

A person’s mind is a very important thing. Even if someone can imagine it, unless they are just being flip about it and know better, better to take a second glance - then if something points to it, get thee to a P.

.

I can agree with you on this insofar as we are all concerned. Human beings can be stretched to a point of no return. We have ONLY so much resilience though some may have a lot more than others. We are like rubber bands in a sense. Stretched too far, what happens? I don’t care who someone is.

Hmm, I’m not sure about this. I might be wrong though. You might want to tell me what YOU mean above by exercising the mind?
I basically think and feel that when we become too overwhelmed by life and do not have healthy outlets in which to detach, this is when the mind begins to deteriorate and crumble.

True, again, unless they have healthy outlets, unless they give their minds a break and allow them vacations or mini-vacations from them. Otherwise, they might or will implode/explode.
But it might also depend on the individuals themselves. There are many great thinkers and geniuses who did not lose their minds.
There have to be other influences also which cause this.

I don’t necessarily think that it is about the questions themselves which cause this to happen though I may be wrong here. But I think that it is more how the INDIVIDUALS handle the situation, what daemons (not devils lol) rise up and take over, how each individual psyche is affected.
As long as we are able to take a breather from the questions and realize that no answer may come and we can accept this negative capability- we could be fine.
Love the questions but don’t allow them to rule our lives and to destroy them.

As Rilke said, the answers may come to us as we live our lives. (paraphrased).
Love the questions for what they are, respect them for what they are, be enthralled by them for what they are, but don’t allow them to enslave us.

encode_decode

Arcturus Descending

What you say above is true.
Also, a deeper reason which may give a warning is depression or falling into a depression.
Unfortunately, the very thing which just MIGHT help depression and feeling such a sense of being overwhelmed and falling in a black hole is talking to someone that one trusts. Aside from that, as I said in a latter post that person needs to get him/her -self to a Psychiatrist or Psychologist.

I think that there is a distinction between losing one’s desire to talk and detaching from that desire in the moment[s].
We value our quiet time, our solitude, and are very possessive of that.

I am aware. That is all I can say here.

I would hazard a guess that we are more ignorant than knowledgeable about that.
I think that in order to know this, we might have to know a person’s journey from beginning to the present moment ~~maybe.
I do notice that when I have one or two cups of coffee too many, I’m like a magpie and I have to rein myself in. :blush:
:laughing:
Also, there are many lonely people out there, especially the elderly, who might feel the need to talk a lot. Who do these people have to talk to? Some of them are shut-ins and some don’t have family who come to visit, for the most part.

No, it need NOT be fear but at times it is fear. I personally think that talk at these fearful moments allow people to drown out their fearful thoughts and emotions.
True, it is also about being joyful and not being able to contain ourselves, needing to share.

For the most part, probably just trying to be helpful not realizing that in might just work in the opposite direction.
Also, we are an opinionated people and I intuit that we like people to know that we know stuff and have answers to things.
Yes, LISTENING is a lost art, I think. It is an art.
If we really LISTENED, we would just LISTEN and let the person talk.

Just be sure to let it out in a safe place.lol

Infinity

When we do not know the reason why we talk - when we have no reason - there are an infinite amount of possibilities that we could choose from.

Everyone has there own slightly different reason for their answer to the question: Why do people have the desire to talk?

To me this fact that everyone has a slightly different reason says that there is no one reason and therefore are an infinite amount of possible reasons why we have the desire to talk. In the last part it was indicated that we are just the infinite speaking to the infinite and the medium that we use to convey our words is finite and usually temporary in nature. Here I want to suggest that communication is everywhere - that talking is not its only means to convey information. Even the smallest organisms communicate. Communication is going on inside our bodies outside of the nervous systems as well as inside.

That possibly: The infinite is speaking to the infinite and the mediums of communication are each finite and usually temporary in nature.

However communication in a sense may have been going on for eternity - this is something that to understand it - some people would have to think metaphorically.

When I say the medium that we use to convey our words; I am meaning many different things - our mouth - pen and paper - the internet - road signs - text books - our brains - music to impart emotion; really there is too much to choose from to list it all here. In a sense you could say that the earth, sun and moon are in communication and I will leave this up to you to ponder - possibly each object in the universe no matter how temporary, may be in communication with every other object. The forever changing evolution of the stars and configuration of the galaxies remind me of the mind and the constant change taking place within. A dimension or domain of potentially infinite imaginings.

By first understanding our own desires, we can then understand our own individual desire/s to talk. Underneath our ability to talk in the first place is our ability to structure information - it is in this information structure where the “pure question” comes into being. As a being I desire other beings to measure the worth of existence and without other beings, existence would be worthless.

. . . Perhaps the desire to talk, deep down, is related to the desire to question . . .

If desire or aspiration was not present to bring you here to post or read that which is correct or incorrect according to you, then what brought you here? Possibly your desire to communicate - to gain meaning and value - to question and to answer - I suggest meaning and value is related to the question and answer.

Why do you - personally have - the desire to talk?

Links to the other parts:

Part 1 - Why do people have the desire to talk?

Part 2 - La deuxième partie.

Part 3 - The Essentials

Part 4 - Purpose

Part 5 - Independence

Part 6 - As a pathway to Enlightenment - Cogito ergo sum

Part 7 - Because nothing is as it seems . . .

Part 8 - Infinity : Why do you have the desire to talk?

You are here . . .

Why do I have the desire to talk?

My desire to talk has gone through many different stages. Stages that I am not too certain I can capture that well in this post.

Therefore I will make this post now and another at a later stage that might be able to capture the essence of this desire more aptly . . .

My desire to talk now is different to the desire I had to talk when I was a child. I liked to talk to my friends and I liked to listen to them as well.

I remember when I was a teenager I had a desire to talk to adults but no desire to listen - at the same time I desired to talk to females and just wanted to impress them. As a teenager I had less desire to listen and more desire to talk.

In my twenties when I was well and truly out in the real world I noticed that people talk about different things, some of which was new and exciting to me - I felt that I was discovering many new things - then as time moved on I became more interested in the mind and what makes people tick.

Slowly but surely my desire to reach out to people and listen to what they had to say overtook my desire to talk and from that time up until now I have learnt more about people than prior to this transition. These days my desire to talk is more based around getting others to talk. Discovering things about people is exciting to me - reading what people have written on the internet has been exciting for many years now.

It is likely that our desire to talk can tell us and others a lot about ourselves . . .

I feel like I am in a new phase of discovery . . . I plan to contemplate how the desire to talk is - when fulfilled - able to restore emotional balance - as well as the desire that men and women have to talk to each other . . . and why there seems to be so many barriers to communication between the sexes.

. . . Each of us is unique through our own desires . . .

:-k

Arcturus Descending

Hi, apologies for the late reply. I have been very busy . . .

Perhaps you have seen the movie Cast Away. When thinking about the desire to talk this is perhaps a great example all packaged up in a movie . . .
. . . Wilson the volleyball . . . In the movie, Chuck Noland(Tom Hanks) starts feeling the pressure that can come with loneliness for some people. He creates a personified friend called Wilson out of a volley ball. This movie tells me that we in fact have a strong desire to talk. With no outlet to express this desire to talk, loneliness can consume us.

Sometimes a new topic for conversation stems in a more subtle manner I have noticed - we start out talking about one thing and next minute you know the conversation has many branches. When I say, in what way do you like to feel connected? I am met with confusion and clarity from your response of: What do you mean by *in what way? To which I initially think, What do you mean by responding with, what do you mean by *in what way? I then laugh it off a little and think - exactly - what a difficult question that we do not always place a consideration for. I myself like to feel intellectually connected to people but a new thing that has come about in my life is to also be connected by the pleasant and comfortable nature of small talk as well - to be able to connect through the power of analogy came to me a few years ago and before that it was more about pragmatism.

Not at all . . . it probably seems that way, the way I put things . . .

Mostly yes . . . we can not negate looking after number one first . . . because what can we be to others if we are in an unhealthy state ? . .
Some people just take it a little too far, me thinks . . . lol

By bouncing topics of conversation off each other we are then able to come to realize our desires - providing we can filter out the noise of an overproduced social reality - in which case meditating on interactions is a useful tool to separate out ourselves from our social interaction. To which you responded:

This is also what is done in philosophy, right? Very useful tools indeed . . . I discover stuff about me and others and humanity and its nature of conflict as well as my own internal conflict . . . reminds me of philosophy . . . reality? what is that? lol . . . yes I am speaking in a more personal sense - it is nice to know that we agree on something. This relating to one another that people do quickly brings to the surface differences which lead to questions internally and externally like: should we have these differences? who is right in this case? And all sorts of other things. It can highlight what we are missing from ourselves. I for one have found out many things about myself through interacting with other people. Obviously it also helps us to get to know others too.

Arcturus Descending: “We can’t ask the right questions if we do not know what we are about just as we cannot ask the right questions, philosophically speaking, in a forum, unless we have an idea of what IS and what we are looking for, to know.”

encode_decode: “We” how ever is not limited to just “oneself” but a group or many groups of people. To feel complete as an individual is what most people are trying to achieve one way or the other. One of my friends once said to me “within each one of us is a little bit of dictator”, immediately I laughed but I do see some truth in it - his perception of reality.

Arcturus Descending: True. I don’t recall if I was using the universal we or not. But that’s true.

encode_decode: No you were not using the universal, I just wanted to branch the conversation by playing with words a little. I would not do this with everyone but I had a feeling that you would not overlook what I did so I saw no harm and went for it . . . not much gets past you . . . lol

I can not argue with what you are saying . . . I find affinity with this. Wholeness to me is about inner harmony . . .

Hmm, regarding 1, is it harmony? Is harmony an achievable thing in any case? I am not sure, maybe if you give me a few more thoughts on this I might be able to respond better. On the subject of 2, I am saying something like that; I do believe that two or more people benefit to talk and the end result is more than the interaction. But then I think that Chuck Noland achieves this with Wilson too.

I would not be too certain about this, I have a theory that each of us has our own individual internal language. I think if you are comfortable that you have gotten your point of expression across in a satisfactory manner and you are happy with the resulting response or lack thereof then you have somewhat achieved what you set out to do; communicating your point of expression!

Hardly ever perfect but optimistically enough . . .

The simplest words spoken to make us feel connected: You are my friend. I understand. I get where you are coming from. et cetera.
Never complete but hopefully sufficient.

Yeah . . . it sounds satisfactory to me . . . I am content to “live with it”, I have never tried a Reese’s peanut butter cup but I will take your word for it.

Tim Tams usually do it for me with coffee.

:laughing:

Flow on.

WILSON!

I know it’s wrong of me, but I haven’t read all of this thread yet because I have such a desire to talk! :laughing: Why? I don’t know. Perhaps we can find out.

The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe. - David Hare

I don’t know why, but writing my thoughts help me discover what I think. And it’s hard to spontaneously do that, but someone who asks a question summons the motivation.

Alan Watts said, “In order to find out who you are, who you REALLY are, go into the woods and stop talking. Even stop thinking in terms of words.” I think about those words a lot. I wonder what I could learn by learning not to think in terms of words. So that’s it then… our motivation is curiosity. We talk because we want to learn. We want a surprise because it’s fun!

One thing about Watts is he never shuts up. Never. His “trade” was talking and he got paid for sitting in a chair, flapping his yap. He talked about how he talks and said it was simply something he likes to do… and that he gets paid for it. Watts says we should always do what we want to do. In other words, do what is fun because anything done for self-improvement is for the ego. Like meditating for some reason other than liking to meditate is, then, self-improvement and that begs the question of why you “want to be better.” And he goes on to say that the reason you want to be better is the reason you are not. That is profound because it leaves only one motivation for anything: fun.

So why is talking fun? Why do kittens play? It’s the same thing. If we’re to be teleological about it, then play is for the honing of skills. I don’t think it’s an improvement that feeds the ego because the motivation is fun and the improvements are a side-effect.

I learned a long time ago… way back as a kid… that asking nicely rarely produced a good answer because no one has the motivation to expend the energy; so to really learn, find someone making a claim and challenge them and suddenly they’ll go so far as losing sleep to filling you in on every minutiae about everything they know. Asking nicely doesn’t give many brownie points to the ego :wink:

So we come on here and type ourselves out there. Then some guy comes along and tears it to shreds. It seems no matter what we say, someone has another opinion on it and in that way we discover what we really believe whether we like it or not. They say flipping a coin can help in making decisions because in the process of flipping we’ll discover which way we hope it will turn out. So this forum-thing may be something like that. Other folks are probably here to build some reputation for the ego, but I think that can only end one way. Pride comes before a fall even though it could be fun for a while. If pride is the goal, we’ll go increasingly more and more looking for bigger challenges until we find a limb that breaks… and the fall is rough.

So we talk for fun and play is nature’s way of honing genetically proficient skills. However you’re put together will determine what you consider fun and so play will accentuate the positive genetic proclivity.

Serendipper

I do not consider it wrong of anyone if they do not read all of any thread that I have created. A desire to talk is a great thing especially when you have a lot of good things to say. A desire to communicate is a wonderful thing especially when you have a lot of good things to pass on. It would be interesting for me to find out why you have a desire to talk/communicate. The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe. - David Hare << I like it.

Perhaps you will find some value in the following quote:

Beyond this, I have to agree with you that writing down thoughts helps one discover what one thinks. It can be hard to spontaneously do that but I find when I am on a roll - I am on a roll - sometimes the roll deprives me of sleep. I have noticed that for some, they are not motivated to answer questions - I find that peculiar.

I quote this in response to what you had written as follows:

I think about similar words a lot. We might even agree to a degree that our motivation is curiosity. There are a number of things that I have read that I really like including emotion as a driver to the creation of language and the maintenance of self-concept through talk or writ.

[b]When being enters the wild with no language - universe provides for being patterns - the silent language is at work . . .

. . . answers can still come from from within by virtue of being’s submersion . . .[/b]
Watts and I diverge a little in that my primary motivation is not fun - but it is positive - we can say that - emotions run deeper for me and are directly related to logic. I will not get into it here but I will say that the rest of what you wrote about Watts I will spend some time contemplating.

Fun aside - I am inclined to agree with what you have written here.

Most of the time I am fairly passive - I do however think you make a good point concerning asking nicely rarely produces good answers from people; Personally I find it somewhat of a pity; I also think it is part of a misguided culture. Never mind, I apply the pressure as needed without going too far above my personal standard.
Sometimes people need to be mirrored too . . . for their own benefit.

I came on here to share my thoughts freely and see what people have to say about those thoughts. I have had shreds torn and I have torn a few shreds myself. There certainly is no lack of opinions getting around - it is questionable whether opinion based philosophy is of high value. I think it is OK to start with an opinion.

Indeed . . . I totally agree . . . the bigger they are the harder they fall, simple as that.

So we talk for fun and play is nature’s way of honing genetically proficient skills.
However you’re put together will determine what you consider fun . . .
. . . and so play will accentuate the positive genetic proclivity.
[size=85](Serendipper - 2017)[/size]

As we are already too painfully aware - not everyone would agree with what you say and not everyone would agree with what I say; I have no doubt that like myself, you have learnt a great many things from different people - I am talking specifically about the things you have chosen to take on board.

I really enjoyed your post - thank you so much. I gained value from every word including the few I did not agree with one hundred percent.

:smiley:

:slight_smile: I wouldn’t say ‘wrong’ in the sense of breaking a law, but in the sense of irony that there I were, reading a thread about having a desire to talk and found that I couldn’t read it for having the desire to talk lol. Maybe I want to pave my own road rather than taking the path already traveled. Maybe it’s a creative outlet or desire to connect more than merely learning the answer to the question. Life’s a dance we learn as we go; sometimes we lead, sometimes we follow. It’s not the destination, but the journey. The purpose of dancing is not to get to the end of the routine as quickly as possible :wink:

Another thing Watts said, “A bird doesn’t sing for the advancement of music, but if someone stops to listen and is delighted, that is fine.”

Check out this short story about The Chinese Farmer

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAVsJT9Uc_M[/youtube]

Even before I heard of Watts, I was hesitant to challenge someone’s faith because I couldn’t say for sure if I am right and they are wrong and I wouldn’t want the burden of assuming the responsibility for their loss of faith, so the chinese farmer story particularly resonated with me. Meddling with good intentions could have disastrous consequences, but at the same time I feel there are things I just want to get out there. Why should I take it to the grave, you know? I believe a rising tide lifts all boats, so if I can help others then I’m making the world better and therefore also helping myself. So, that’s one reason I talk… I’m arrogant enough to believe that what I say is “good”.

Me too. I’ve been hanging onto that one for a long time. As a kid, grandpa had a large Reader’s Digest collection and I’d go right for the Quotable Quotes every time. Not sure why I was innately drawn to that sort of thing. “If you can’t explain it simply, then you don’t understand it well enough.” So maybe large blocks of text is merely people trying to decide what they believe while the real nuggets are the quips. “A 1000 forests are in one acorn.” “An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”

Actually, our consciousness is in the past because even examination of our own thoughts is studying the past. Looking at myself in the mirror is seeing myself some small bit of time ago and the farther away I look, the farther in the past I am. So, it would seem that we can’t be conscious of the current, the now… although we live in it.

I don’t lose sleep over losing sleep anymore. Check out: Why programmers work at night swizec.com/blog/why-programmers … wizec/3198

When you’re on a roll, keep rolling or you’ll fall off. Even if you mess-up, keep the beat and keep moving.

Reminds me of Eminem: genius.com/3051262

Dre tole me to milk this shit for what it’s worth
Till the cow just tilts and tips 'n stumbles to earth
And if I fumble a verse, keep going
First take, I make mistakes, just keep it

The rhythm is more important that the content. When you find the wave, don’t stop to sleep.

I haven’t gotten to the point that I could do Quora. It’s too big and I’m better in smaller groups. That and I don’t care much for the voting… it’s argumentum ad populum.

That’s why I’m not a huge fan of reading. I stand on the shoulders of giants, no doubt, but I don’t want to be too absorbed in any one person’s philosophy. It’s like Bruce Lee taking what works from various styles and making his own. Don’t be constrained, but be like water. Styles separate man.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-gO_grDkGI[/youtube]

We don’t usually think of Bruce as a philosopher, but that was his passion.

Emotion is a dual-edged sword.

That seems right. I’ve thought of myself as a mirror in social contexts before. I’m not always the best at being the better person and sometimes reflect what has been projected.

:slight_smile: I like how you add color! Sadly, I have no genetic proclivity for that. :frowning: If you ask my favorite color, I’ll say “color of what?” That should be enough to send the bridge-keeper over the edge in Monty Python’s Holy Grail movie. :evilfun:

Existence is a duality. Without enemies, we wouldn’t have friends. Without disagreements, we wouldn’t have agreements. The battle between good and evil is an eternal process where good is always winning, but never wins because if good annihilates evil, it also annihilates itself. We have to love our enemies.

It takes two to tango and I couldn’t do it alone :wink: I’m glad I ran into you and find that thinking the same thought at the same time last night seems meaningful. How can it be that two voices in the wilderness cry out in unison? Situations like that further my suspicion that the universe is sentient.

This is why I like reading for it gives one the time to really explore a subject in depth. One can of course learn from engaging with others on fora but as you
imply the ego can sometimes get in the way. Although I will listen to anyone if I think they have knowledge or wisdom to impart even if they do have an ego
So as long as I am learning I have no problem with the particular means being employed. But I still think solitary reading is the best way to achieve this even
if most of what I read I cannot remember. I really wish I had a better memory

That’s true, but I suppose it matters what we’re reading :wink:

Some people read for fun and others use reading as a tool merely to learn. So one enjoys the journey while the other just wants the destination to fill in a piece of a puzzle for a larger journey.

The problem I have with most books is they start with a general idea and then fluff it up to make a book out of it. And that’s fine if the journey is the enjoyment, but I’m often screaming inside “Will you get to the point already!” LOL! I do that will videos too. Sometimes I turn the speed up to 1.5x and after a while of listening like that, normal conversation sounds really slow. Try it sometime.

Have you heard of Kim Peek?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhcQG_KItZM[/youtube]

He can read the left page with his left eye and the right page with his right and has nearly perfect retention.