Category: Dialogue

Stoic philosophy is quite clear that there are many things you can not control. Rather than dwell on the circumstances and conditions nature has placed upon you, a Stoic must instead only focus on how those things affect them and how they can control themselves despite circumstances that are not within their control.

Whether born an emperor or the slave, a Stoic is to do their duty as the economic circumstances of their birth are out of their control.

I never liked that line of logic.

On it’s face it locks a person in place.

Now in Dianetic philosophy, if you can call it such. There is a concept that ALL the challenges and circumstances of one’s life are under one’s control. The Dianetics are in complete control.

Meaning that unfortunate events are to teach lessons, the more those lessons repeat the more severe they will be until the Dianetic has learned the applicable lesson.

I despise Dianetics.

As it creates a Narcissistic god complex in it’s adherents.

As a Pragmatist, it serves to take away from these conflicting philosophies what is relevant as it is relevant.

-Story Time-

(Philosophic points after)

I often jest with co-workers and friends who are unhappy with the circumstances of their life, particularly due to their economic status and the conditions of their job.

“Well, you should have thought about that before you decided to be born poor.”

Is my default remark. It illicits a laugh and dismisses the conversation woe of choosing either between pity or comradely. While not invalidating their circumstances or their feelings to it.

I use this remark because with every single co-worker, I talk with. I’ve told them they don’t have to work here. Everyday they are given the choice to improve their tomorrow, through sacrifices today that may pay off in the future.

Whether they are a lift operator in their fifties or a disgruntled loader in their early twenties. Their first complaint about the job (to me) is met with this question.

“Well what would you rather be doing?”

answers range from I’d rather be at home, playing video games, to on a yacht off of Florence.

“Well, what’s stopping you? Go do that.”

Here’s when I see the walls of cognitive dissonance rise in their eyes and demeanor.

They brush it off and go back to work

Or at most

Outright state “I need money.”

and head back to work

But the seed of Truth has been planted

If they don’t want to be at work

They don’t have to

Not only did they make the active choice of choosing this job

But

Everyday they reaffirm that choice

Actively by going to work

Passively

by not looking at other job offers

(our lift operators where paid $15/hr, when the going rate was starting at $22/hr)

by not working on bettering themselves

(Our warehouse is brutal and acts gym rats who still find 5 extra hours to hit the gym

but not one to work on their resume)

by not creating goals

It’s been three years since my first conversation with a disgruntled co-worker

he’d rather be a Twitch broadcaster, playing video games and getting paid. That was his answer three years ago. YET, he hasn’t tried even once.

Since that time his salary has been cut by $5,000 dollars.

The Covid bug has reduced his hours and his wife who went back to work to make up the difference may be out of a job.

So when he complains because our typical March shift is 12 hours and now he is only getting 6.

“Well, you should have thought about that before you decided to be born poor.”

and since January I’ve been on Twitch myself.

What’s more is I come at it with two months of research before I started. Turns out the average length of time for a streamer to “Breakthrough” is 6 years.

Our operator could be half-way but he hasn’t broadcasted once.

And I don’t even want to be on Twitch

But that’s where the people are

and I need them to read and buy my books

So I can continue my mission of improving young men’s literal lives.

-Alright Story Time Over-

As a Pragmatist, it serves to take away from these conflicting philosophies what is relevant as it is relevant.

The Stoics say you can’t control the circumstances of your birth

The Dianetics say you control every aspect of your life (birth included)

What would it mean to think that you chose the circumstance of your birth?

What kind of agency does this provide?

If you were omnipotent before carnation, why would you have chosen the particular circumstance of your birth?

When you could have chosen any other

If you chose the circumstance, you chose the challenges.

I feel rather empowered thinking that I set the difficulty of this life. No, I did not decide all the events; Hurricanes and Tidal Waves, but I can Stoically decide those events impacts on my philosophy and future actions as well as their emotional impact on me.

-Second Story Time-

I didn’t decide that Bitcoin would be so valuable, while I knew of it in 2008. Rather than dwell on the opportunity lost or indulge my own cognitive dissonance (Which tells me that Bitcoin has and will have no inherent value and therefore is an immoral confidence trade. OR. That destiny has decided that you are not ready for wealth and that I must continue to work on myself before wealth will present itself.)

Instead when I am presented with a new technology or opportunity, I will preform a cost benefit analysis and poor separable resources into it if I think it’s ends are worth the investment.

I still think that by and large, stock trading or confidence bets are immoral and the purity of my soul must also be considered when makes such “investments”.

Which is why I bought into High Times during their schedule A push and after further revelations as to the companies overall health. I am excited to pick-up more stock once they hit an exchange. Even though the stock I have already purchased will have fallen though the floor. I own stock in High Times not because they are poised to make a fortune with the legalization of weed and have a super confidence boost but because with high enough equity in the company I can ethically take dividends and keep confidence in the company.

-Story over-

Pragmatically I think that operating under the heuristic, that you chose not just to be born but the circumstances of your birth, gives you control and agency and hope as to how the rest of your life turns out.

You may not have chosen.

Or

You did.

The truth doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you operate as if though one were true.

If you think OH woe is me, I am but a leaf on the wind. You will still die.

If you think I am the master of my destiny. You will still die.

One of these operative modes gives you more choice everyday to continue your current pattern of behavior

and the other

You surrender that choice to the fates

Well that’s about my thoughts on that.

End Card

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HngyHngyHppo

I’ve just gotten my manuscript back from a copy-editor. They’ve done a fantastic job. But it has left me a little insecure in a creative choice that I’ve made.

“Rather than use the tradition dialogue format.” Arthur said.

Hppo – “for longer sections of back and forth dialog. He has placed the speaker tag like a play before the dialog.”

“But when there is more than two characters in a given scene as an author and a reader… a rather slow reader. I can get lost on whom is speaking.” Anthony chimed in.

Hppo – “If you’re a fast to moderate reader. You wouldn’t ever notice the speaker comes after the dialog. I mean in English in general we place adjectives before the noun. We say the big red plastic ball. But in Spanish and most other languages they put the noun before the adjectives. They say a ball it’s big, it’s red, it’s also plastic.”

Arthur – “That is the great thing about English though because we put forth the adjectives first when the noun is made clear all the adjectives attach without resistance.” Putting his finger inches from Hppo’s to drill the point into his head. “If you start with a noun… Take a car. Boom, now the audience is thinking about an impala, Lexus, and that one guy in the back is still thinking about his first car a puke lime-green gremlin. It’s harder to get the audience to change their mind and think of the car you wanted to describe after introducing the noun. How easy is it to switch that gremlin he has in his mind to the Dodge charger you wanted to talk about?”

Hppo swatted away an imaginary fly at the end of his nose whipping back his head til Arthur dropped his finger and was ready to listen again.

“Sometimes you’ll know who is talking because of the previous sentence but the point I think he is trying to make with dialog is the speaker is not a noun but an adjective. When you read dialogue and don’t know who is speaking til the he said, she said tag appears after. Your mind doesn’t add the flavor that a dialog can have. Look if you don’t know if Arthur is speaking you don’t add his lisp or if you think Arthur is speaking you add a lisp when in reality Anthony in his soothing but slow baritone is speaking.”

“That’s ridiculous. Dialog has been structured this way for hundreds of years. Readers won’t get lost and add the improper. “FLAVOR” just because the dialog tag has been hidden.” Anthony coughed as Arthur mocked the word flavor.

Anthony – “You can’t see it though because you don’t read as slow as me.”

Arthur – “I read at an average speed.”

Hppo – “But if you did read slower. Maybe you could see that dialog tags after a long sentence don’t give the reader the information they need before they’ve formed their opinion.” Hppo shrugged about to give up.

Anthony slowly worked back Arthur’s logic. “Take your car example this is no different. That one guy in the back of the room is still thinking of his shitty gremlin becuase you’ve said car. What if the reader thought that I were talking in my deep voice only to find out that you with your silly lisp where the speaker. We now have to hope that unlike the gremlin guy they can change all the thoughts they were having to be in line with what I the author was trying to say in the first place.”

Hppo – “You see even with an average reading speed you take all the information in, almost at once, and you haven’t flavored the dialogue with who you thought was speaking and the mannerism they carry. But if you have a slower reading speed you’ll become frustrated because the whole time you were hearing lisps when you should have been hearing something low and soothing. And if you get frustrated you’ll stop reading. If you stop reading you won’t get your reading speed up.”

Arthur – ” What is it that online guru is always saying… You only get better at doing push-ups by doing push-ups… right?” Arthur was coming around. Hppo and Anthony knew that when he started a tangent it was because he was about to change his opinion but make it seem like it was own independent thought and not due to any of the data presented before him. If he just accepted it as true then he would be losing the argument but if he had a eureka moment then he wins the argument by introducing new evidence that supports his brilliant idea. “You can read books about doing push-ups or watch movies and fitness videos but if you don’t do the push-ups you won’t get better at them. But you don’t have to start off with diamond press push-ups if you’re out of shape you can start with incline push-ups against a wall or a table till you’re strong enough to lift your own weight. So by placing the tags before the spoken word you say you’re making an easier push-up so the reader can get stronger , get their reading speed higher.”

Hppo – “I’m glad we could see things your way.”

That’s the problem I know I’m smart enough to justify anything and that’s why I’m a little insecure about this choice. Only time will tell if it is the right one or not.

‘Til then with love,

HngyHngyHppo