Authenticity

The Catnip of Storytelling

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment

It’s the time of year when some of the people you haven’t seen or heard from for awhile may reach out to get together or call or chat or send massive tomes as “Christmas Letters.” (Folks still write those, sometimes, it’s true….) I have a few folks for which this holds true, but there are a couple of old friends I’ve referred to in other posts that get together pretty regularly. We don’t run out of things to talk about, for sure. Aside from the usual catch-up, we have all these intervening years during which we didn’t really keep in touch, plus our shared youths, to consider and reconsider.

Add to this that all three of us are born storytellers, and you have the recipe for a lot of Really Long and Fascinating Conversations.

Graphic provided by CoPilot AI

What is it about telling stories versus just conveying events or facts that is so compelling to so many of us (and drives so many other people utterly bonkers….)? I feel there are several different things, some or all of which call to our story-telling breed inexorably. Some of them include:

  • The desire to provide context. The presentation of a simple data point begs (to me..) to place it in what I deduce as a position of context that provides a bit of understanding about what that data point can mean in the environment around it. While most data gets some kind of context, storytellers prefer to give it a LOT of context! This, however, doesn’t play well with the Severe PowerPoint set…..
  • Like begets like. When surrounded by other storytellers telling stories, it only feels natural to “fall into the pool” and do like likewise. It is a very comforting a life-giving place to be…
  • The story triggers vivid, irresistible memories.  These make it difficult to break off or wrap up the story. If well-told, your hearers are drawn along with you. Eventually you realize that you’ve been holding forth for quite awhile and wrap up the current discourse (I have been know to say, out loud “I need to stop talking now….“). This at least gives everyone a time to sit with the memories, or for another one of your storyteller friends to tee up one of their own.
  • Storytelling used to be how we conveyed knowledge, experience  and belief. Humankind didn’t always know how to write, or read, or anything like that. Verbal was the only way ANYTHING was passed on, and stories lend themselves easily to memory. So, we’re kind of built for it……

Each of those sits atop the next for someone like me. When I was busy working on my graduate degree, my wife (a Ph.D. scientist!) would read my work and come back to me with two primary kinds of feedback:

  • Help with my written grammar – I tend to write conversationally.
  • A single question: “What is your point here?”

The assistance was invaluable to me, both for the degree and in the following years. The single question she asked has served me well over time until retirement from the corporate world, and serves me well now when I find myself involved in situations that require me to tell a little less story with the conversation.

Nonetheless, storytelling is truly catnip for me (at least as defined as what catnip is to a cat with a serious catnip problem….I have a number of cats, so I know what that’s like….). I don’t know how much of a draw it is to others. I feel that some are more drawn to written storytelling (I have a few friends who are authors, and I see this in them), others to face-to-face conversation (enticing, plus there’s body language to express and observe….), and, thanks to all the story-telling technologies and platforms available now, many more who tell these stories in a lot of ways.

If you are a member of this tribe, leave a note in the comments with a pointer to where we can find and enjoy your stories!

Days of Celebration and Gratitude

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Graphic rendered by CoPilot AI

Now, that may read like a pompous title for a post, but let me relate the context here…..

Throughout the calendar year, everyone has days of particular memory, good or bad, that float up for annual pondering. I’m no different. In my life today, and for many years past, I live a block of days that each have their significance, together and apart.

In my life they have landed in this order (further explanation a little later…):

  • Bachelor Party Day
  • Wedding Anniversary
  • My Birthday
  • Veterans’ Day

These, celebrated every year, always lead me to focus on my past, present, and potential. While each has a much more involved story, here are some fore-shortened versions:

  • Bachelor Party Day – The day before my wife and I got married, we were both so amped up that we went ahead and put on our rings, and went to a hole-in-the-wall Greek restaurant for supper, then went wandering around a mall. We were so giddy about the next day that we just had to get out and burn off some emotional energy together. It was fun, and a day we both remember. The anticipation was glowing!
  • Wedding Anniversary – Many of you have had this kind of commemoration in your lives, and, if not, you know what it is. Like anyone who has lived this experience, there are a lot of big and little things I remember. Each of them is like a small light, which, when put together with all of the other small lights of that day, make the total memory (which, as I’ve gotten older, has further solidified some, mythologized some others, and allowed some others to fade a bit…). My life since that day has not been the same, and is lived in light. Some light has been harder to see at some times over the years than some other light, but it was still there.
  • My Birthday – If you’re reading this, you have one of these…someplace. Some birthdays are memorable, some pass by almost unnoticed. Some are, or feel like, milestones (I have just had my 70th and THAT feels like a milestone to me…..). I’m fortunate enough to have my immediate family living here, and several close friends, along with the stream of friends I keep in touch with, one way or another, across the ether and locally. They are all wonderful people and I am so very grateful for them. Their ongoing friendship, kinship, and intelligence makes our touching base on this day in some way more meaningful.
  • Veterans’ Day – The inclusion of this day can seem odd to some, except that I spent a large portion of my life in the U.S. Navy Music Program and the National Guard (the latter while I was in college for 5 years….). Being in a Navy Band meant that I ALWAYS had a gig to perform on Veterans’ Day, and, early in my career, enabled me to meet several women and men who were beyond any appreciation I alone could give. At one ceremony in Chicago, I got to meet a World War 1 vet. At Pearl Harbor, I got to meet a number of veteran survivors of that attack (as an aside, my father-in-law was a Pearl Harbor survivor, and my brother-in-law was a Vietnam War vet who suffered from Agent Orange exposure; my Dad was a Korean War vet, my brother was an Iraq War vet, I have several cousins who served in Afghanistan, and other uncles who served in World War 2….lots of love in our family for Vets….). I am humbled to be a member of this huge community, and I feel gratitude every day for all that’s been done, all that’s being done, and the integrity of you all.

I get to celebrate and dwell on memory through this block of days at this time every year.

I don’t know, obviously, what each of your experiences are and what kinds of memory-encased days you may carry with you. I just want to express the particular frame I encounter every year at this time. Remembrance can truly help focus perspective. Each time this block of days comes up, there are always interesting things going on in my life, community, and world. Celebrate and be grateful…a pretty decent way to approach them for me, and I hope for you too.

Mind The Gap(s)

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment

The longer I live and the more avenues we all have to “converse” with each other or to the broad public arena, the more I feel like language ties us up. It can feel like going out into the woods and going “Boo-ge-da, Boo-ge-da!” to the trees.

Language is so part and parcel of our experience, each of which is singular and unique, that crafting communication to clarity seems harder and harder. Here’s an example I like to use:

Let’s say that I sit down with a new acquaintance and she tells me that she has two dogs. Here are the two dogs that I visualize:

Credit: https://pixnio.com/fauna-animals/dogs/two-puppies-dogs

However, here are the two dogs she loves and cares for:

Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great_dane.jpg

…and…

Credit: https://www.pickpik.com/chihuahua-dog-puppy-baby-play-young-108669

Now, as we continue to get to know each other, and as often as the subject of her dogs comes up in our chatting, I may gain a better idea of what her dogs are really like. However, my first internal impression is still there, even if it starts to evolve to a closer view of the truth.

If this is any indication of how something as basic as “dog” can get misinterpreted, here are a few words that have even greater latitude in interpretation and personal/cultural definitions:

  • Work
  • Freedom
  • Family
  • Father
  • Mother
  • Boss
  • Dangerous
  • Sickness
  • Rich
  • Poor
  • God
  • Socialist
  • Fascist
  • Vote
  • Neighbor
  • Home
  • City/Town
  • Country (meaning either Nation or Rural)

….and so on. Needless to say, any one of these words and concepts can drive a terrific conversation. A number of years ago, well before I received my Master of Communication from the University of Washington, I grew fascinated by how humans communicate, manipulate, and shape discussion. Since then I’ve nurtured my deepening fascination for quantum science, philosophy, and theology.

These all inform each other. I keep uncovering what I feel are really cool cross-meanings and enlightening points of view that help me to further my journey. I will never understand it all (especially the quantum science, but a deep bow is due to Brian Greene and his books….they lead me through the quantum briar patch better than most….).

The “Gaps” I refer to in the title to this post are the gaps in clarity and understanding that we, as humans, ignore at our peril. I deeply believe that part of the course we need to navigate in this world, and especially here in the United States, is one of “Minding the Gap(s)” in the understanding and empathy with all the members of our community.

“Holy Crap!” you might rightly exclaim. “That’s not a cognitive stance I can take with everyone!!!”

Well, no, probably not. It’s hard work and tends to take more time in an interchange than our rushed and breathless lives will allow. So, start small…start with someone close to you, that you interact with most every day.

In many ways, this will be a harder task, because, if you really are with them a lot every day, you’re used to a lot of conversational assumptions, which is pretty normal. There are, so to say, more gaps to mind. So, if you need to, choose another person. Listen in an open way, not busy composing what you will say or reply in return while you “listen”. Again, not easy, as it isn’t part of what we do naturally as humans, and certainly not part of your normal discourse, but give it a shot. Listen openly……ask clarifying questions (“HOW BIG is your first dog? WOW!!!”). Listen to the tone of her voice. Pay attention to facial expressions and body language (tough to do online, for sure, hence our challenges communicating there…more on that at a later time).

Each gap you mind will uncover additional gaps, for sure. Just going deeper with one person is a lifetime process. Broadening the effort to others will clear and uncover immeasurable other gaps. It’s all good. You’re deepening your relationships with those around you and gaining an understanding and empathy you can’t get any other way.

So, if you’re always trying figure out what’s going on, this can be an important part of the journey for you. It has been for me, so far….

Forward Into The Past

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Cartoon rendered by CoPilot AI

It can sometimes take a long time for the technologies that I’ve gotten used to and the other threads of my life to get entangled in a more meaningful way.

OK, so some background story should be filled in here.

It has been a LONG time since I left home to join the U.S. Navy Music program back in 1973. While not a strict introvert, my close friends at home were small in number. We all pretty much went our own ways when time sprung us from home. That’s the apparent effect that many of us experience once we’re past the high school graduation experience. Being young, and having been around each other so much, “staying in touch” wasn’t so much in our DNA as much as going out to get hip-deep into life, whatever that was going to be for each of us.

Still over the years, there have been a couple of friends that I have stayed in very infrequent touch with. Over the decades we stayed vaguely aware of where each other was geographically and the status of our families (I was always WAY behind in keeping track of their children and what they were doing, but I was having a hard time keeping up with them personally and getting through everyday life, as I’m sure they were to.) Every once in awhile (like every few years…) we might have an impromptu phone call or a “drive-by ” visit, but generally life rolled on.

The rise of the kind of video calling that tech has brought into mainstream awareness and usage in the past several years, as well as personal advancing years, made me even more aware of what kind of regular get-together might be put together. At the beginning of this year, one of my friends lost his loving wife to heart disease (and the host of maladies that brings with it….). My other friend that I had kept in closer touch with had experienced a messy divorce a number of years earlier. All three of us seemed pretty comfortable with the online video tech, so I orchestrated a 3-way chat to catch up. I didn’t really understand the importance of this at the time…

We all like to talk and tell stories, which meant that I needed to block an entire afternoon for the chat, but that was fine. Being retired, my time (and theirs) was flexible, and it would be really good to be able to reacquaint each of us to the other in this context. The time spent was richer and more meaningful than I thought possible. We each came away from the chat hungry for more time together.

Since then we have gathered a least once a month. Other one-on-one chats spawned from the group chats, as we check up on each other. Rekindling these friendships has been one of the truly bright spots of this year for me, and one that I feel we have found to be valuable past valuing. I have rediscovered two extremely unique men that I valued highly long ago, and value even more now, if that’s possible. Lifetimes of experience, along with insights of life from the different parts of the country we live (I live in the Pacific Northwest, another lives in the Midwest, and the other on the Southern East Coast), along with finding out how well, or badly, we remember events from our past…..all these things, along with the joy that comes from experiencing afresh why we all became friends to begin with so may years ago….I can’t recommend it high enough.

If you have a friend that lives afar, either in time or space (or both…), and you haven’t caught up in awhile, do that. As humans, we are made for relationships, and building or rebuilding them is a good thing.

Can I Hear You Now?

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Photo – James Musallam, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This condition has been going on and degrading for quite awhile. Much like the proverbial frog in slowly boiling water, it’s easy to miss (unless caused by something catastrophic, of course….).

In this case, I mean hearing loss.

As of today, I’m just less than a month away from turning 70. I’m sure this has been going on for quite awhile (an earlier life spent as a musician, which has the possibility of hurting your hearing, or not….still…). Over time, you adapt to include slight behaviors:

  • turning your “good ear” (if this is the case..) toward the person or sounds you want to focus on
  • saying “WHAT?!” a lot more frequently at home than you used to
  • sneakily cupping your ear toward the person or sounds you’re trying to hear, and
  • a really dangerous precedent, in a noisy environment, just internally giving up on trying to hear clearly and hope for enough snatches of conversation, music, whatever that will allow you to piece together some idea of what is going on, with an appropriate facial expression (hope you pick the right one…..).

With this wind-up, the next node in the story for me was realizing that I needed to do something on behalf of the hearing on my left side. The right side wasn’t a real picnic, either, but the hearing on my left side (when I cover up my “good” right ear) sounded like I was trying to discern the world through a really thick pillow. Added to that is the positional problem in my home. The way our family area is set up, my spouse always sits to my left. When we chatted, my tally of “WHAT!?” was WAY more than the usual….

So, although many audiologists offer a free hearing test as part of their community outreach efforts, I decided to go through my healthcare and insurance providers. This would make sure that test results and further medical decisions would be notated in my medical record, allowing for check-ups and amelioration, as might be needed.

So, at the beginning of this year I got a “full meal deal” hearing exam via the healthcare network. The last official one that I’d had was over nine years ago (and for which I was able to obtain the results). The comparison was pretty drastic. Hearing on both sides had degraded, but the left side much more so, validating my internal assessment.

So, an appointment was made with an audiologist to talk over options. The technology for hearing aids today is pretty awesome, I found. I also was wildly fortunate in that the audiologist I met was very well acquainted with working with the U.S. Military veterans’ community and the VA. She had previously spent ten years working at the VA and knew the system really well. In helping me submit the appropriate paperwork, along with the test results and medical recommendations, we received approval from the VA to pay for the hearing aids and a few follow-up check-ups.

It’s now been about two months since I was “fitted” with the single hearing aid for my left side. I thought it would be hard to adjust only having one, but that has been non-issue. My biggest road bump so far has been behavioral…..inserting this new activity, “putting in my hearing aid in the morning” into my nearly calcified daily routine.

I’m getting better at it though. One way I hang a carrot for myself is by introducing my brain afresh to the sounds I have been missing. I listen to music constantly, so in the morning when I’m getting ready, I pause, put on my hearing aid, and all of the sudden I can hear the music much more clearly, which makes me happy…Oh Yeah…

One last bit, kind of a PSA: do not neglect your hearing. I don’t care what age you are, but especially if you over fifty, get a baseline test. Getting some of that sound back allows you to take back a bit of the world around you.

See It All

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I do a lot of varied reading through out the days and weeks. I just finished a book by Dr. Cornel West entitled “The American Evasion of Philosophy” and started one by Slavoj Zizek entitled “The Sublime Object of Ideology”.

Not exactly easy reads, but they are part of my ongoing desire to wrap my head around the philosophical, cultural, societal, spiritual, etc. foundations that not only surround us today, but brought us here (Lest you think I’m buried in this stuff, I’m also reading/listening to other books – War & Peace, Limit by Frank Schätzing, a History of Spain, Theology of the Old Testament by Walter Brueggemann, The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene, and a couple of others…..I like being able to switch gears as well as get exposed to the unpredictable ways all of these can shine different lights on each other).

As I read the early part of the book by Zizek, he mentioned a “progressive theorist of education” from the Sixties who published a study in which a group of children were asked to draw an image of themselves playing at home. A few years later, after some years in primary school, the same group of youngsters were asked to do it again. There was quite a difference. The early self-portraits were “exuberant, lively, full of colours, surrealistically playful…” The later portraits were much more subdued. Most of the group chose to use only regular pencils, although other colours and drawing pieces were available. Predictably, this experiment was taken “as proof of the ‘oppressiveness’ of the school apparatus, of how the drill and discipline of school squash children’s spontaneous creativity, and so on and so forth.” (Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology, pg. ix)

While not entirely subscribing to this viewpoint, I began to think about the experience and perception of each of us, surrounding expectations regarding what we see, and a whole host of other influences, factors and limitations. I remember clearly, to my later shame, working with my kindergarten-age daughter to try and help her learn to color within the lines of work that she had from school. My goal was to try and help her be successful at school, without thinking about the joy of coloring outside the lines. She worked very hard to do this, which slowed her down considerably, thereby finding a different avenue from which to annoy her teacher (she later was told, in class, to just stop working at it so they could move onto the next thing on the classroom schedule…..She felt like such a failure…).

Visualize this process. Take this photo:

Graphic 1: Source unknown

A younger child, asked to draw this, gives you something like this:

Graphic 2: rendered by CoPilot

A few years later, upon being led into the world of “how a grown-up would do it”, the artist hands you this:

Graphic 2: rendered by CoPilot

From the vantage point of someone about to turn 70, I meditated on this conclusion by the educational theorist, my experience as a parent and member of our society and culture and years of life folding like layers upon my awareness. If the photo, as regards this writing, represents what I ACTUALLY see, then the two drawings are not an either/or perception……they are both/and and beyond.

The first drawing has, perhaps, more vibrancy and colorful impressions of the reality. The second, however, isn’t ‘wrong’. It observes a more Platonic ‘essence’ of the subject, with clarity and precision that the first one misses (although, to be fair, ability and the difficulty of working crayons when in youngster “Woo-Hoo!” mode can make clarity, etc. harder to capture….).

So, there’s more there. It is NOT a matter of one being Right and other being Wrong. Not only are they both Right, but there’s even more there to see. Throughout your day, sit with the moment and try to restrain your own ‘monkey mind’ concerning the things you see. Just take the grace and time to see them, accept them, and realize that others may see different things about them than you do, which isn’t wrong. Taken together, you may both be “right” with more to see together.

I’m feeling that I want to see what I see more in light of the first drawing. The colour, the life, the vibrancy lead me to a mindfulness I don’t access any other way.

Another Voice Within A Community Of Voices

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

I have been a pretty irregular (I would call it “spastic“, but that’s THAT voice in my head….) at posting anything I write. There are any number of reasons/excuses I can give myself:

  • I’m busy doing other stuff
  • There is SUCH an overwhelming amount of content out there that I felt that I’d just be adding to the noise.
  • I get so many things going in my mind that I COULD write about that I despair about writing about any of them….or, again, so I tell myself.

Anyway, I just finished the book “Life After Doom” by Brian McLaren. It is a sobering work, but one at the end of which I began to question all my reasons/excuses for NOT adding my unique, authentic voice (see how I worked the name of this blog into that!) to the community of voices of which I know I am a part. It’s true that no one, or very few, may read my posts, but that’s OK. I will be arriving at the venerable age of 70 in a couple of months (Wow…..how did THAT sneak up on me?) and, aside from the humorous retort of “Quiet folks, an old man is talking/writing…”, I know that each of us travels along each moment experiencing life differently, and I feel I can expose what I have encountered and whatever kind of interpretation, if any, I have that anyone else may have encountered.

My posts may be a bit shorter or longer, depending on how far into story-telling mode I get, but if you find any of this edifying, silly, bone-headed, or any other quality of interest for you, I invite you to keep an eye for slightly-less-than-random posts going forward.

Enjoy your moment of life, my friends.

The Whole Deal

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Graphic by CoPilot AI

We human beings fall so very naturally into “either/or” thinking. Whatever I happen to be thinking about or experiencing, there always seems to be an “over-and-against” object to face or confront and either ignore, fight against, abhor, or try to change. This is true within as well as externally.

A LOT that I have read over the last number of years by any number of authors and resources discusses this problem and how to address it. Internally it can show up as a distaste (at least…) and sometimes hatred (many times…) of some aspect of who I am or things I have done, some of which I still do. Externally it shows up many, many ways and in differing degrees. Anywhere from a slight disgust or aversion to something or someone, to raging, blind hate and anger. However the so-called “Other” shows up in my experience or cognitive observation and classification (another thing humans excel at: classifying things and people to ensure we don’t have to work too hard at understanding them…..we HATE cognitive heavy-lifting, by and large). Those things inside me I work to change, lose, ignore or suppress.

Understanding myself as a whole person, encapsulating both light and shadow, is hard (and all of the degrees of grey…). It’s one of the main reasons why I have begun to appreciate the Taoist Yin-Yang symbol as a representation of the whole me. Another set of phrases, especially strong in my understanding of this truth, is settled in my memory by Richard Rohr. A quote of his that I have taped to my desk says, “The false self is not a bad self, it’s just not the true self.” The light and dark are both part of me, and I am totally loved, regardless. That, of course isn’t to say that I don’t endeavor to work for the enhancement and health of the light in myself, to the diminution of the shadow. But, I’m not working to cultivate the shadow, either.

A Journey of Gaps

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Graphic by CoPilot AI

I keep reading, especially in the book I’m into about Sartre and his thought journey right now, of the unusual place of art in establishing a counter voice in times of upheaval and uncertain restraints. It’s hard for me, as I feel like I only have one or two drums to beat, and that I’ve whomped on them before, so what’s new there? I’m not sure….Perhaps the context of a new day or a different focus?

That said, I have friends who take part in various arts (music, visual, written) in regular and copious expression. I’m a bit envious of their compulsion/addiction to their artistry. But I know that I can’t compare myself to them. I can look at who I was yesterday and look at myself today. Moving this moment forward is the only change I get to really take part in, and life teaches me that THAT changeableness is the norm of Reality. Without being driven over by events, flexibility and openness to the call in that moment and the next is what I can pay attention to and live into and out of.

My real passion for the past 4 or so years has been to read and learn as much as I can. My personal library is enormous, and I’m guilty of only reading about 30+% of the books I purchased in my life (years ago I used to comb through book stores while I worked in the military or in corporate, telling myself that I was obtaining them for when I didn’t have the funds to buy them any more. Of course, being a true bibliophile, I always came up with fund for more books).

Then there’s the desire to reread those few works that call to me to be experienced again, for whatever reason. There may only be so much time between today and the day I will be unable to read or understand what I can take in, so I do my best to cover a lot of ground now. As the eyes give out, that is a challenge, although I am mightily grateful for audio books…..I only wish they also had more of the other books I have that haven’t been produced in audio yet, but it’s a good start.

Anyway, as I have studied more in the (somewhat overlapping) areas of linguistic theory, critical literature theory, theology and mysticism in a number of religions, cognitive science, psychology and communication, the histories of other cultures (and their global influence), and the kind of Zen-like qualities of quantum mechanics (I’m a science geek, but I don’t have the math and physics chops to go very deep there, still….it’s awfully cool!)…my initial question to myself when I started this particular journey was, and still is, “What brings us to this place in society today, and what can I better grasp in order be an intelligent and love/life-giving person in this world?”

That’s an inadequately expressed, shortened goal. There are any number of rabbit trails to head down in working toward filling in the gaps in my understanding, usually uncovering scores of new gaps as I go. I’ll pass on some of the stuff I find out about, if it seems like it might interest you as much as it does me.

Weasel Words

/ Jeff Hora / 2 Comments

I have been using a term, “weasel word”, in a way that has garnered a bit of attention and enough misunderstanding that I think I need to clarify my particular meaning.


First of all, in my most common usage, a weasel word is not a bad word. (A further definition, if you wish to read more about this term, can be found here…) Weasels have an occasional cultural and semantic reputation of being an animal to avoid. That is not the attribute I want to emphasize when I use this term in the context of clarity and further understanding in a conversation. I am more focused on the slipperiness and cunning of the animal. When I say or write “weasel word”, I imply that the word is hyper-subjective…. Slippery, if you will. There are any number of words that are NOT weasel words, if only because they are slightly better established in the commonality in our experience.


For example, if you say the word “cow”, I may not visualize the exact same animal you do, but somewhere in our experiences, whether Real Life experiences or exposure via the media in some way, initially we both know, at a basic level, the kind of animal we’re talking about (certainly, if the conversation is about cows and not just a passing reference, further definition may be desired….). This is more of a problem when words that are indicative of a concept or a belief, especially when utilized to persuade or convince, but can easily show up in daily conversation. Here are a few examples:

  • liberty
  • justice
  • law
  • love
  • illegal
  • constitution
  • evil
  • good
  • diversity
  • strong
  • weak

…and so on. In the context of a real conversation between people who wish to understand each other, if and when words like these come up (or any other words that make a person “jump up” internally and make them either uncomfortable or immovably established in their “solid” idea of what it means…), time needs to be taken to ask about what each other means and feels about the word or words, and listen. Even if the person doesn’t agree with the other’s definition, at the very least you can know what the other means when using that word or those words, and will make the conversation more productive. The chances of a slight re-think of your own definition may occur.


This whole ongoing process of noting and dealing with weasel words in our discourse, whether at home or in public in some way, can make you less likely to be easily manipulated by any person or organization trying to force you to react in some way. Work well worth doing.