We write something we thing is perfectly clear, or, worse... clever, but do so in our current context and even our current mood. Then the reader uses their current context and their current mood to interpret the written word and perceives everything from judgement to insult.
In fact, what we've written may be clever, but when it's misinterpreted by the reader it might seem as far from clever as possible, or it might be clever but in a very bad, very unintended way.
Many wars and arguments would be prevented if assumptions were less frequent & misunderstandings and misinterpretations and perspectives were not as various as they are, but the world would be a lot more boring, at the same time, and many fewer things would be invented, et al.
(In that light, it's not hard to understand a possible reason why the Star Trek universe's hive-minded BORG race must assimilate other cultures' distinctiveness and technologies to 'improve upon' its own.)
A good way to summarize it is by saying that pretty much everything depends on and is defined by the
PERSPECTIVE and mindset and mental attributes of the person who sees/defines/remembers it (and the people nearby at the time, who often form a consensus of sorts), and that's why people can manipulate others' thoughts and memories after discussing something from a particular perspective, even introducing new, fabricated memories into another person's brain.
That was demonstrated on a show about aspects of the brain/mind I think I remember watching on Netflix years ago. Alan Alda, who loved deviled eggs (or eggs prepared in some way; I can't remember the details) at the beginning of the episode for a reason or a few reasons, by the end of the episode disliked eggs prepared in that way for reasons introduced to him by a scholar (IIRC, it was someone who worked on a college campus) during the events depicted in the documentary-style episode.
Since my traumatic brain injury (or since I awoke from the resulting coma, although I don't remember learning I had awakened—or so I was told—until around three days after that), I've caused offense to many, many people in many, many ways, usually innocently. If something I say or do is inappropriate or offensive, I like to know about it right away so I can (hopefully) avoid that mistake in the future. Sometimes I can tell by a person's reaction even if nothing is said, but if I don't learn about it until days or weeks later from a third party, it's a lot more emotionally painful and stressful and I feel a lot of regret and frustration with myself. By that point, it's awkward to bring up the subject with the person I offended, if I happen to still have contact with that person.
I wish I could just put all the TBI stuff behind me and leave it there because it happened so long ago (1990), but, since it still affects me on a daily basis (overwhelming fatigue, poor memory, etc.), I can't.
I have one friend who was a best friend before the TBI and is still a best friend, but now he lives in another state and has a family of his own. When he was graduating (formally receiving his Ph.D.) and still single, as I was, he told me I knew everything that he did about his field of study. He didn't say that during the ceremony. It was probably a week or two before, or maybe afterward.
I doubt I'll bring up that topic much on these GRC forums or anywhere else, although I have in the past at times. I think I discussed it enough on my profile page here. If I remember after typing the remainder of this wild group of trails of thoughts in my head, I'll double check.
The entire basis of the humor in many comedic TV series in decades past is miscommunication.
The plot can be summarized as:
- Something ordinary happens in the daily life of a main character, which we (the audience) see.
- (a) Another main or tertiary character hears or learns something out of context and becomes offended or assumes something is A or D when it's actually B or C and informs another main character or resolves to solve it alone or stress about it alone by doing something drastic with other characters or alone.
- Calamity and/or Humor ensues. Tension builds for the audience.
- (2. (b)) The mix-up/confusion is resolved (including any subplots, usually also humorous or tension-evoking) during most of the remaining time in the episode.
- All is resolved and the show's characters become best friends again or in an enhanced/evolved friendship just before the ending credits roll, or as the credits roll.
[Added after the below paragraph was written: Come to think of it, I think I've summarized the plot of a much larger percentage of TV and film than I first realized... and even more if you replace "comedy" with "drama" or "<insert_genre_here>"]
That basic premise occurs everywhere, from shows that were under 30 minutes to movies that exceed two hours in length, some of which have many similar subplots, but it made me think of shows from
Father Knows Best to
The Andy Griffith Show to
Bewitched to
I Dream of Jeannie to M.A.S.H. to
That Girl to
Three's Company (and its many spinoffs) to multiple popular comedy series in the 1970s and '80s. I see reruns of those series on OTA/broadcast TV stations such as TV Land, MeTV, MeTV+, LAFF, Rewind TV, DECADES, and many others (which might be the same networks with new names, rebranded versions of the former now-defunct or deprecated (as a coder or probably any modern tech user might say) names); I dunno whether some of those networks exist by those names anymore, and at least two of those I learned of a minute ago just by looking at part of the list of channels detected by my TV.
I need to refresh my memory—I don't know what, exactly, the words
network, channel, station, affiliate, etc., mean in relation to each other. Although I love and strive to use precision and concision in all I say or type, I often break that rule by typing or saying more than is necessary. Anyone who has read almost anything I've posted already knows that.
Aha... Scripps Media calls what it owns a "portfolio of 61 television stations in 41 markets." So a station is identified by its call letters, such as KERO or WMAR, KNXV or WXMI, KGUN or WCPO (all taken from . I see that some of Scripps Media's stations are NBC, some are FOX, some CBS, and some ABC. I'm not certain, but I think those company identifiers are probably affiliates.
What it lists as its Networks are things like CourtTV, Newsy, Bounce, ION, Laff, Grit, DefyTV, TrueReal, etc. That's interesting because I get Grit on at least three different stations locally, and Scripps Media's major affiliate (as I defined it above, whether correctly or incorrectly) is not among them, but CourtTV and CourtTV/MYSTERY are. Laff is on an NBC affiliate (NOT owned by Scripps), and ION and ION+ are a on a different station entirely (with a few other Scripps networks, leading me to believe that the station is owned by Scripps, although the aforementioned local major network owned by Scripps regularly broadcasts its status as a Scripps Media station and I don't think the "other" does).
I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt as well. What if the person who just snapped at me is merely having a bad day? What if I did or said something that offended them? Should I ask the person if there's anything I can do to improve their day? I need to think like that more often instead of feeling offended.
I know that people are very diverse and, if their personality has become offensive habitually or if they're just angry about something unrelated which occurred a few minutes ago, I know they can change, given the chance and, if required, some positive feedback.
Humans are not dogs (literally.. I know they are figuratively compared to dogs in many ways much more graphic and specific than the phrase snapped at me I used above), but the same sort of thing often works for dogs and probably other mammalian/other pets.
[any parenthesis/backets/etc. I didn't close during the last edit will remain for the time being]
