Anonymous User asked: For whichever Odists this best suits: Sometimes, I will lead somebody around, down a given path of inquiry or to certain conclusions. To encourage them to ask "the right questions." It ends up feeling like an elaborate game, particularly if they grow wise and lean into their part. Do you think manipulation of this sort is wrong, even when the purpose is benign or simply for play? For that matter, do you have any general thoughts on People and how they interact?
Spoiler level: consequential — mid Nevi'im, early Mitzvot
- The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream
- The Artemesians have a word for this: tuvårouni; “push-play”, they called it, a tension in all our dealings with others that enables us to overcome the inertia of comfort. If communication is the means by which ideas are expressed and transformed, then manipulation is how we engage in this push-play; if we all felt the same to begin with, after all, then why have words at all? Communication is manipulation, so this playfully benign qualifier describes teasing, not harm.
- May Then My Name Die With Me
- You are not wrong that communication contains at its heart manipulation. However it is more than just manipulation. It is more of a give-and-take than a push-and pull. This is the way in which people work: we make our arguments, yes, but we love, we dance, we offer and receive freely. You mention the framing of this question with its playful qualifier. That is a sort of boundary around the topic. Boundaries such as these must be kept. One must keep this push-play above board and open to disconsent. Consent is to be informed, as I have said before.
- True Name
- Yes; consent, after all, is ideally unambiguous and overt. But it is also true that consent can grow more playful, more implicit, more sly. This, I think, is an example of that tuvårouni, where one becomes more open to unanticipated, unplanned kinds of play. Play, perhaps, as in the insinuation that Ioan might grow some dandelions, yes?
- May Then My Name
- I…well, you are not wrong, there. It became a part of our relationship as we grew closer together. I am not sure that I would do the same thing, now, as the person that I have become; I would feel…well, manipulative. I do not think that would feel good at all.
- True Name
- But you do not feel bad now. Do those dandelions not remain in eir lawn? I have seen you come in with a dandelion behind your ear. Do you both not cherish them? Do you suppose Ioan resents that you convinced em to grow some dandelions?
- May Then My Name
- I will concede that point. You are correct. The dandelions remain and have not been uprooted. We both love them. That said, this growing of dandelions was intentional. I must have gotten that from somewhere, right? After all, I was pointed to em by you, and for the very explicit purpose of shaping the History.
- True Name
- It was not solely for that purpose; I did point you somewhere that I thought was best for all of us, true. But that somewhere was towards someone who could lift you up after your previous relationship; who could understand and so fairly present the story of our clade to others; who could capture the history of the System with only the best of intentions. I held all of these in balance when I wrote you that letter, May Then My Name.
- May Then My Name
- Do you feel that way still, now that you are getting coffee with em once a month?
- True Name
- …There is the sense that ey does not wholly trust me, and I am sore for that. I am sure that is in part because your relationship with em was all but arranged, for better or for worse. There is a cynicism in this kind of dual-intent. I stand by every word of that letter, but there was clearly harm in coupling what was sincere with what had utility to preserving the continuity of the System, and for that I do apologize.
- May Then My Name
- There was harm, yes, and I am not upset at where we have wound up and how. Both of these can be true at once. Both are true, my dear. And I must admit, it can be kind of fun.
(May Then My Name by me, True Name by my partner, @hamratza, who has been playing a fork of her on Wolfery.)