2006/09/01
Words ...
When I was in my early 30’s, I wrestled with my character. Three other
like-minded men and I regularly got together for a “spirit fire”, and
analyzed our habits, reviewed our actions, examined our motivations,
and checked each other’s reasoning.
Amongst our common problems was that our common language obscured more
than it illuminated. Polite language lied to us, and reinforced our
lying to ourselves.
We needed words to say what we meant.
So we refined the definitions of existing words for accuracy and to
eliminate overlapping meanings. We clarified their assumed contexts and
connotations. We took special effort with the vocabulary of “recovery”
jargon. For certain other words of importance to me, I did the same on
my own.
Some of those defintions will follow in later posts. One is called for
now.
Spirit Fire has no special meaning at all. It was a wry joke. We
usually gathered in a wood and lit a fire for warmth, light, common
experience, distraction when we were silent, and eventually out of
habit.
