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The Polite Screen

I'm experiencing the world directly.  Others seems to be experiencing it through a screen.  Communicating and performing rituals are different endeavors, but too often they are not separate.  Language works best for communication when it's utilitarian.  Posturing confuses language, adding layers of code that obscure meaning.  This is the screen: a preoccupation with attitude presented symbolically, suggesting rather than saying.  This isn't an aspect of language that evolved naturally, like syntax.  Polite indirectness arises from something other than a need to communicate ideas and is imposed on language out of what I presume is a fear of each other.

What if everyone said exactly what they were thinking?  Would there be more strife and unhappiness?  Is it necessary to protect ourselves and others from insufferable truths that we engage in polite obfuscation?  This seems counterproductive, but then I am largely outside the common human emotional apparatus.  I have no tribe and no need for one nor any use for linguistic or behavioral loyalty rituals.  If we all spoke our minds, perhaps more could get done, provided we could learn to assess dispassionately what our neighbors are thinking.

I'm not inconsiderate and I don't think that I unknowingly say inappropriate things.  I do have significant difficulty understanding people through the screen of politeness attached to their language.  And many have just as much trouble being direct as I have interpreting indirectness.  Asking for help is pointless when politeness is so integral to communication that clarity is either impossible or so difficult to achieve that trying isn't worth the effort.

Part of being autistic, for me, is missing hints.  Another part is intellectualising the excruciating minutiae of the human experience.  To some this may seem excessive, but it's the only way I can be.

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