Some cookies ago (if you’re new here, cookie is the lingo for newsletter), there was mention of The Cookie Jar’s roots. Not to get all anthropogenically obsessed, but instead to tie (or untie) a knot and cast off. Since this cookie is geared to think about the ways the past remains in the present, the audio includes a pretty concise taste of the sort of observations you’ll find here.
There are a few social behaviours I’ve noticed lately; an aversion to vocabulary, a contortion of vocabulary usage, and so I’m just going to reach back to the past for a moment to invite you to hang out with ChicagoNow radio broadcast with Alex Quigley and Amy Guth. Because memory lane isn’t always about showing off or signalling virtue, but rather about getting to know each other and an opportunity to admit how wrong I was to have ever not realized how amazing every day and situation has been and is. Much in the way people have conversations with each other across continents is weird, maybe listening to an old radio broadcast is weird, but you know one thing The Cookie Jar can probably be promised to be- a bit weird :)
Two months ago now seems like last year, in the same sense the attached WGN recording from 11 years ago feels like yesterday. And maybe that’s because time and human development is not linear. (Rhetorically, do we need science to show us how time is not linear?)
I know; I get it. If you’re still here, I do consider myself lucky. Tossing out words that could require a dictionary used to signal intelligence, but today probably doesn’t mean that since there are apps for Etymology, Dictionaries, and Thesaurus’s (which should still probably be referred to as Thesaurai for joy’s posterity).
The last I checked in with folks, some are feeling pretty bummed out, and also pretty bossy. So I thought I would try my hand at some sass and get a bit cheeky on offering some sound bites on addressing the kind of society we live in and the sort of situations we may want to actually be living in.
That’s a broad invite, so let’s get a bit cosier here. Two folks settle in for a chat over some tea. Imagine whatever weather you like. When in a conversation, a word arises one person knows, doesn’t know or misuses. Some folks will nary bat an eyelash and look it up later. Some folks will halt the oration and ask. Some folks will roll their eyes. These are behavioural choices.
So that if someone wants to understand the speaker better, they usually ask a question. If that person is seeking approval in some fashion or rather play a pretend game, they may not ask or roll their eyes. These kind of social behaviours are invisible in that they do not actually have a tangible “thing” to point at, they are ghosts in that they exist in the realm of perception, or sense and cognition.
Sure, understanding the audience is important, but then I have to really wonder, do people want to be talked down to in small words? Or do people want to rise to the occasion to learn. I grew up with the notion learning was, bluntly put, good. A learning orientation is not so much of a mindset, but rather an outlook on life that affords greater creative choice. Other behaviours leave little room for choice and can quickly become victim-y.
The thing about writing The Cookie Jar that’s quite different than The Art of Advice is that I allowed doubt to join the mix; I welcomed not knowing (perhaps to an extent even I am not comfortable with) to mingle in with some certainty.
And while each Cookie sent out is a bit tricky because most subscribers are also coming along for an unknown ride, I send this trips down memory lane on good faith. As I am for freedom of speech, I am also for freedom of thought. And what was said, was said. And done. The past is present. Even today, in its recorded form. But the past doesn’t have to condemn the future, here on the Cookie Jar, or even broadly in society.
Individually, we all get to choose the behaviours we engage in, the ways we care about each other, what we watch, listen, read, dance, eat, whatever. Since I really do not want The Cookie Jar to become another Art of Advice, I solemnly swear this is the last audio blast from the past. From here we cast off acknowledging the past, not denying it nor trying to rewrite it. Ciao until next time!
The past is present