Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Inside And Outside Of Social Interactions

I sometimes reflect on my social interactions. Okay, I reflect on my social interactions pretty frequently.

Last night while I was lying down I thought of something. I thought of an interesting distinction that sounds a little opaque and inadequate to me, but one that I'll put out there anyways.

The distinction is between the inside and the outside of social interactions. By inside I am referring to an interaction that involves primarily mental engagement, such as conversation. By outside I'm referring to something outside of the mind, something more physical. Often social interactions are facilitated by some kind of outside activity: we watch videos on the internet together, we play video games together, we watch a tv show together.

But then there are interactions that are facilitated almost entirely by internal engagement. I guess the best example is an emotional or intellectual conversation. You are sitting there with somebody and all you are doing is swapping words that give you a clue into their 'internal' mental world.

It can be really hard to always engage in this internal way. Sometimes I feel like it is easier to rely on external things to facilitate socializing.

This is a very underdeveloped idea of mine. But it is something I am somewhat curious about, no doubt.

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About Me

I spend most of my time working as a mental health professional. I have been preoccupied with philosophy, politics, healing, and many other questions for the last 15 years or so. I am currently working on putting together my study of Plato and Aristotle with contemporary work in philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, and trauma research. I use this place primarily as a workshop for ideas. I welcome conversation with anyone working on similar problems. The major contours of my basic project have been outlined here

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