Command of the English language in our times
 Literacy and Dialectical exploration of motive and subversion unfolding in real world drama

     

Q. What is Interactivity anyway? 

A. Interactivity remains one of the most effective ways of engaging site visitors even into The Economies of Online Cooperation wherein:

...as remarkable as the products of online cooperation and collaboration have been, it may be that for the most part we have been picking the “lowest hanging fruit” – supplying interesting digital goods that can be provided by single individuals while ignoring duller, more complex, but no less useful public goods. I do not mean to slight the benefits that online interaction has brought, and further advances in hardware, software, and connectivity may reduce the cost of producing public goods still further and create new “low-hanging fruit.” Nevertheless, it is crucial to avoid an empty-headed extrapolation from current success to utopian visions of fully cooperative communities.
 
[Low-Hanging Fruit, noun. An actual or only misperceived excellent short-term opportunity.]

-All to often unripe and burdensome-

 

...and, given such blithely ersatz, mediocre and shabby satisfice, resignation to making do in unaware incompetence, worse, as we shall discover, where lurk the deadly stumbling blocks to optimal learning and growth, the snares of TOTALITARIAN INTERACTIVITY, bogus alternatives, behaviorally structured options and protocols imposed so as to seem free and at one with the user's own thought process, impoverished of real decision or responsibility, are hardly exclusive to the Internet or even automation in general, but the sheer irrelevance of age old spectacle, illusions to be consumed.  The colossally Absurd Existential bait-and-switch sometimes referred to as: Totalitarian Interactivity consists of any manipulative situation of irrelevance obfuscated under an illusion of choice, in a reality of control and constraint, for an audience sucked in and lead about by the nose! For quintessential example par exultance, isolating and deceptive webforms, short and simple or long and complicated, are all too often designed to elicit any hope that any detail of free association permitted and invited via individual response, thereby by implication expresses any promise of flexibility in tailored response and thereby actually makes any difference. But in truth, the bureaucratic or automated response scarcely varies and after all the wind up, one size fits all. In essence, the mark has been conned into pouring their heart out to a bot!

“Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?”  — Frank Scully, Variety, Frank's Scrapbook, September 1950

And precisely such is one of the major problems even in sustaining serious conversation online at all! The helplessness beyond what has been so rightly decried as the behaviorally structured bogus alternatives of TOTALITARIAN INTERACTIVITY masquerading as the dubious free choice of one's own already presumably somewhat uncritical thinking, and the demand only for the lowest hanging fruit of online interaction instead of any savvy quality human remote collaboration.

 

Q. What is real time text communication?

A. Real time text communication as long popularized by chat or instant messaging that so reduced the intellectual level of hte internet, is real time conversation by electronic exchange of text, either one to one or in group conversations or online chat rooms.  Real time text communication can be something of a vexation, offers the worst of all worlds, with neither the spontaneity of real time video or voice communications, nor the time and tranquility for composition as afford by asynchronous text communication such as email or message posting boards.  Real time text communication may bring something of a vexation, forcing either compromise in content of communication or else delay in response. But the stress may abate with practice. And real time text communication may be crucial for those who can read a language, and useful in multitasking under a heavy work load.  Instant messaging, real time text chat is often an integral component of many other Online interactions, particularly computer mediated RPG of one sort or another, and other thereby even further impoverished online rôle-play.

 

Q. What is the crucial importance of posting conventions?

A. Quality interactivity online generally still depends upon asynchronous text communication, private or public response to previous private or public messages by others, often excerpted or quoted for context.

The revolutionary quick turn around of electronic asynchronous text communication makes unprecedented actual conversation in typed correspondence possible!

But for any in depth exchange or Dialectic, a very important aspect of quoting never to be underestimated, is how the quotes should indicate what sections or points of a message that any given remark replies to. Often there may be certain response to some sections or points of a message, and distinct other responses to about other sections or points even of the same message. And it will be crucial to see, readily, which response pertains to which point, in order to make much sense of any of it.

And the best way to convey all contextual connections clearly and distinctly, is to quote a little bit, interject some comments, quote some more, and then interject some comments specifically to that as well, and so on. Each answer in turn, follows the same method, and an entire written conversation unfolds, point by point, iteration by iteration.

Quotes should be indicated, automatically, by your email software or service, by a character at the beginning of each line, usually a '>' (greater than) sign or chevron, the right angle bracket or right brocket, in bare plain text, or by a blue bar in html that supports colors, sizes and fonts, etc.. or on some forums, by a range of different indications such indentation of the text. Thus, with each iteration, another such indicator is added at the beginning of the line, so that chronological order as well as intended sequitur will always be clearly indicated as the conversation proceeds.

These principles of the quoting conventions handed down from Usenet, even back from the days of Arpanet, are still applicable in any mode of asynchronous text communication, electronic forums, message posting boards, list servers, egroups, and email, etc. and allow the end user to meaningfully participate in the structuring of interaction, rather than finding oneself thereby manipulated, enslaved or hamstrung.

Writing Conversation: Analysis of email Speech Events
The advantages of Usenet’s quoting conventions correctly and with proper attribution or:
What do you mean "my reply is upside-down" ? Bottom vs. top posting and quotation style on Usenet

PS. Also please always be sure to include citation of the full URL web address, a clickable hyperlink to any discrete materials or resources on the Web as ever comes to be referenced in discussion. 

As so famously Marshall McLuhan would have it: “The medium is the message.” Indeed, the massage in the mass age! For pervading characteristics of whatever medium constitute  message in their own right, easily overlooked. Indeed as Marshal McLuhan further expounds, artifacts of media, not to be overlooked, do indeed effect and affect any society and shape perception by their unique characteristics. As any society's values, norms and methods inevitably become changed by technology, social implications of new media emerge. Indeed such as asynchronous text communication. What then reveals itself as the inherent message at the very essence of asynchronous text communication? And likewise hypertext? Not to digress. And all to what impact upon Dialectical collaboration, so fundamental to Eudemonia?  
   
For characteristics of whatever medium constitute  message in their own right, easily overlooked. Indeed as Marshal McLuhan further expounds, artifacts of media, not to be overlooked, do indeed effect and affect any society and shape perception by their unique characteristics. As any society's values, norms and methods inevitably become changed by technology, social implications of new media emerge.

Fully leveraging the power of the written word, asynchronous text communication is communication by text, typed language, with any delay between response, which is to say: not in immediate real time. Messages are first composed, and only then made available to be read at any later time even soon afterwards, for response in kind likewise. Asynchronous text communication such as in email and electronic message posting forums and groups, with such quick turnaround, has brought the unprecedented advent of correspondence as a continual and convenient vehicle of actual dialogue, remotely, even internationally. Correspondence via asynchronous text communication affords timely and substantive conversation, but with the intervening leisure to best compose ones thoughts. Thus congenial and productive alternation between the outreach and extroversion of Dialectical collaboration and the introversion and retreat of solitary reflection. Hitherto, before the advent of the computer revolution, with traditional postal delivery, or: “snail mail,” correspondence as a vehicle of actual dialogue back and forth, was impractical and counterintuitive because of the far longer turn around. At the same time, asynchronous text communication maintains a record and generates work product.

Indeed, even beyond entirely serviceable modes of asynchronous text communication, traditional email and electronic message posting forums, groups and the like, if we want anything more fancy, there now exist also highly sophisticated online platforms and collaborative writing tools to choose amongst as need arising, even free of charge. Many incorporating such features as versioning, commenting, and change tracking capabilities to support iterative processes. And thereby facilitating multiple participants to simultaneously access and edit an ever evolving narrative, whether in business, creative writing, or anything else. After all, a business plan remains merely another kind of likely story at all grounded in external reality as well as drama and conjecture. Or so one might hope.

Of course, even given nigh instant turn around of electronic communication such as via the Internet, asynchronous text communication remains notoriously lacking in all manner of subtle cues so characteristic of real time voice communications, let alone live onsite encounters. Moreover, ordinary conversation unselfconsciously features a certain self correction process back and forth, only natural and so well accustomed to dialogue. Whereas culturally, capable asynchronous text communication often requires a deliberate and even meticulously attentive interjection of response, point by point, line by line.  Moreover, no matter how frequently replies in turn are posted, asynchronous text communication cannot rely upon short term memory for context. And that is another reason why conversational adequacy in asynchronous text communication makes demands that might not arise in real time communication. Every reply must address not only others in the short term, but ones own forgetful future self, consulting the conversational history wherein all previous messages in the thread are preserved and presented in sequence underneath the current message text.
    
For all such remain among the characteristics of the distinctive and unprecedented medium of asynchronous text communication, especially at the highest levels of intelligent exchange. Without such specialized literacy, conversation via asynchronous text communication, may become significantly impaired and dumbed down. Indeed precisely such impairment has been most notoriously normalized within online communities reliant upon certain very limited and limiting technologies and formats of asynchronous text communication. After all, one of the standing issues in asynchronous text communication such as in email, remains the necessity of communication not only in the short term with anyone else, but in the longer term, of leaving what amount to effective memos for one’s own future self. Different cultures foster greater or lesser aptitude and literacy in this very regard. Indeed likewise different technologies, more robust or deliberately less so, also encourage or discourage any and all such greater depth of communication. Indeed, the medium quickly becomes a message and expectation regarding culture of communication.
And specifically here on FoolQuest.com, for asynchronous text communication online at its most sublime, there remain two particular creative endeavors most strikingly amenable to Dialectic analytic yet strategic and to brainstorming towards creative solution finding in collaboration among equals. And these remain Entrepreneurship and creative writing: new venture creation (various business startup) undertaken concurrently with serious collaborative fiction writing. If only because both business or project planning and story telling are each deliberative and verbal. It should be easy to imagine even worthy alternatives to Entrepreneurship and creative writing, nevertheless that are neither verbal nor exactly deliberative. Music, for example, affords an avenue for creative collaboration and improvisation, ever growing online, requiring however, a different literacy and a different keyboard. Few options however, will ever be so spontaneous or routine as never to require both initiative and prior deliberation both practical and imaginative. Only the entire gamut of mind numbing failed conventionality in such dire need of subversion! And hence the probortunity at hand. And more anon.

The true essence of Language: For Eudemonia remains ever a function of human interaction, in a word: communication. And the level of communication often accrues, in any measure, from the degree of attention invested. Because language is more than cipher. Language via whatever vehicle, remains the medium of thought and expression. Indeed, as Martin Heidegger propounds, language speaks the man: Because even human character, personality, is constructed from language. And moreover to reiterate, as Marshall McLuhan would have it: “The medium is the message” For characteristics of whatever medium constitute  message in their own right, easily overlooked. What then reveals itself as the inherent message at the very essence of language, indeed even of the English language in particular? And of what Relevance upon Dialectical collaboration, so fundamental to Eudemonia?

Indeed love of language, advanced linguistic facility, complex and variable semiotics, scope and precision in command of English, ever remains crucially important to robust communication in the wordy, nerdy and heady process of all creativity and discovery. Indeed by very nature, creativity by far exceeds any merely solitary individual trait or characteristic. First of all, there is no investigation so concrete as to become penetrable without abstraction and creativity. All science begins with hypothesis, sheer conjecture, only then subject to critical preference, even before Empirical reality testing. But more to the point, creativity, playful, pleasurably engaged and meaningful creativity, involved Eudemonia epitomized in collaborative brainstorming and solution finding, ever persists as uniquely gregarious and intelligent human motivating social and intellectual stimulus struggle as consistent with the grand afterthought of Cultural Anthropology. Indeed, all product of evolutionary neurology and hideous inbred mutation of engorged human cerebrality under 'The Survival of the Sickest.'

And it's complicated: Language remains an active memplex expressing itself through a suitable living host: Indeed as Heidegger contends, people speaking or writing from the memory of language forever echoing in our minds. Active Reading and Listening frequently and subversively exceeds ever popular but somewhat misguidedly halfhearted cretin philistine maxims and expectations of simple writing style. Of course the most obvious danger remains that of oversimplification. And  oversimplification is such that merely for simplicity's sake then results in distortion. But even so said, in and of itself, indeed treads perilously close to oversimplification. Because, as it turns out, even oversimplification can become such a complicated matter. Indeed, true elegance and simplicity must be earned  via rounds of subtractive and an ever more tightly integrative process of editing. Because, easy to do but difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, and never a waste of time.

Indeed, reading comprehension replete with diligent miscommunication competent conversational adequacy in ongoing collaborative miscommunication repair, ever turns upon active cognition and comprehension, actually reading with purpose: Conscious effort to hear, observe or read, then analyze, assign meaning to and react, even just individually and subjectively, to content of communication. For just as the mind functions as more than merely a passive receptacle of knowledge, likewise there is more to be gotten out of reading than most simply rendition of whatever text. 

Indeed, Effective Active Reading and Listening strategy, or in a single word: literacy, particularly of Literature as distinguished, narrowly defined and signified by the much vaunted capital 'L', frequently demands that much more than simply decoding of the very words and then parsing of whatever phraseology and even composition, page by page, line by line, word by word. But to always get it right the first time, say very little, and never anything new.Indeed, motivation whatsoever, the passion persuasive at all of taking a focused interest, remains indispensable. Because, easy to do but difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, and never a waste of time. And while, of course, difficulty does not automatically confer greatness, nevertheless often worthwhile content and fuller experience thereof, may indeed entail any greater effort and focus also on the part of the reader, and not only from authors ever striving to find, involve and engage their audiences rhetorically and dramatically. Effective Active Reading and Listening may even be thought of as most richly engaged and creative partnership on the part of message recipient, with message sender. interpretation in reading or listening at a higher level, the happier and more capable for it. There can be nothing halfhearted or inattentive in exalted and all consuming Eudemonia, so fully engaged. 

Indeed reciprocally, beyond merely any one way communication, Eudemonia turns first of all, and indispensably, upon Socratic Dialectic, the practice of controversy being the welcome and invited exchange of criticism, thereby ongoing error detection and course correction, and in deliberation analytic yet strategic, creativity bridging abstract principle (generally why) and concrete application (specifically how). Indeed, no one even much bothers to ask how or even what, until first understanding, even philosophically, to ponder precisely why.

Indeed of course the only true and best reason why, gentle reader, all that matters most in the human condition, remains not only in psychology, but Axiology: real life drama, exploration of whatever individual driving motives entirely of one's own uniquely. Indeed, personal interests and priorities interactively to navigate personal path through the present copiously dense hypertext, nonlinear thought given sprawling form. And thence into deep discussion. And perhaps at long last, even as often frustrating, proverbially like unto herding cats(!) to any meeting of minds on common ground in common cause of true unmet friends. Gentle reader, is FoolQuest.com right for you?

 

 

 

 

  

 
The present work is a hypertext under ongoing revision. And I have no plans to switch to any other format, such as a blog or a book. But might it be simpler or easier for you, gentle reader, were we to just start all over again? Because, no thank you, I won't do that either. But why all so? - well might one ask. And the answer can be discovered in the very salient and nature of hypertext itself, in sharing the unfolding expression and connection of thoughts. Moreover, this may require ongoing revision. After all, writing is rewriting, patient hard work, and never a waste of time. And as unprecedented in history, a process that in our time, the internet allows the author to share online.
Yes, it's a smarty party here on FoolQuest.com! Life, computer literacy, Effective Active Reading strategies, Executive Function, and the adroit interrogation of densely branching and comprehensive interactive hypertext: Emphatically and in open and brazen defiance of anti-intellectual reactionary and currently fashionable doctrines of short attention and simple minded simple writing, FoolQuest.com is not simple writing at all.
 
Do not become so baffled merely in being prevailed upon in trying anything differently than howsoever as accustomed. Not if there's a reason for it, while to some so painfully obvious, yet to others quite unheard of. Indeed, inescapable pertinence that bears mention, to indispensable knowledge work skill sets in the modern world, becoming second nature with only a little practice. So let's try something new! FoolQuest.com is not a short attention casual read. Not everything is or should be!
Au contraire, and take it or leave it, FoolQuest.com is literate complicated comprehensive, deferred gratification, knowledge work product, extensive and densely written and branching hypertext charting an ocean of thought interactive for any cognitive deep dive, protracted complex abstraction, detailed research, planning and feasibility study, analytic and yet strategic, in the scope of a complicated and often confusing real world. All whereof the entire present exposition but feeble scratches the surface. Not a bug or a red flag, but a feature! Let us then together strive for lucid excellence in hypertext, but never at cross-purpose in weird Luddite opposition to hypertext in very principle. Alas that any embrace of complexity, will come as anathema to whatever phobic rejection all thereof.
Preliminary to any further exposition, brief discourse upon hypertext therefore ensues, copiously detailed and branching hypertext being, after all, in thought and expression, the medium of present voluminous message content, and purposefully so; indeed actually by resolute authorial intent and fully conscious aforethought, and not by any conceivable vaguery of unwitting error or incidental mishap merely in need of righteous correction. Indeed herein, copiously dense hypertext, nonlinear thought given sprawling form. Not a bug or a red flag, but a feature! Any relevant criticism then must pertain in context to said intention and purpose indeed as characterized in distinct motivation and reasoning as pursuant in any lucid assay.

FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions, meaning questions and answers that continually reoccur. An effective FAQ is an organized collection of valuable information that must be frequently updated to broadly reflect whatever needs addressed. RTFW: Read the Fucking website! Don't repeat FAQ. That's just inefficient and inconsiderate! So goes a prevailing wisdom and Internet tradition. But there emerges an even somewhat snarky contrarian view, in condemnation of FAQ to begin with: “FAQ pages are where good content goes to die.” In other words: Don't publish FAQ. FAQ are bad! Because FAQ interrupt conversion. Not just sales however, but any conversion or recruitment, public information, propaganda, consciousness raising or any other conceivable outreach. Actually, FoolQuest.com, the present hypertext, serves, among other functions, indeed as more than simply FAQ, and not merely towards conversion, but interactive self-selection. Is then FoolQuest.com right for you? And most sincerely, thank you gentle reader. Because we abide in an ever more tightly strained attention economy. All the more then, in the immortal words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Nevertheless and notwithstanding, does anyone at all, and short attention be dammed, actually never read any complicated material whatsoever, even no matter howsoever entirely warranted? And never attempt anything difficult or convoluted? Yes. And they swear by it. But also just the opposite so many people online become absorbed and devote themselves in the most esoteric and obscure deep dives and puzzles of every kind, just for the challenge, even with little at stake. At least those pleasurably entertained, hence paradoxically more serious yet taking themselves less seriously, may therefore find whatever topics more engaging here on FoolQuest.com Divergent and convergent thinking as reflected in branching and converging themes amid hypertext, is not a bug or a red flag, but a feature! And there will be no information overload, for those who devour content and knowledge resource because they find themselves intensely interested, motivated and engrossed in whatever they perceive as being most meaningful to urgent personal concern and crisis with which we all perpetually find ourselves so ceaselessly embroiled, and grapple ever tenaciously every day. Nor will information overload overcome those who can swim the cyber sea without worrying about dinking every drop, indeed those who can decide, pick and chose, whatever content or information that they seek, howsoever or not any of that may coincide with authorial intent and purpose in any meeting of minds actually towards sought for collaboration.

Even in more advanced and efficient reference from traditional linear text, instead of simply reading every word in sequence, it may often be recommended instead to scan the text, and continually zero in on whatever seems most pertinent to whatever unfolding purpose at hand and deciding which details to follow up more closely. Hypertext is merely a more sophisticated navigation tool to precisely such techniques of more capable reading and communication. Hypertext must be composed, published and linked together in a non-sequential web of associations allowing users to navigate through related topics, from one entry to another via hyperlinks imbedded into the text that the user can simply click on to access related content as associated with whichever hyperlink. Indeed, the World Wide Web is a global hypertext network of information residing on servers linked across the public Internet.  
      
Moreover, once again as Marshall McLuhan would have it: “The medium is the message.” Indeed, the massage in the mass age! For pervading characteristics of whatever medium constitute  message in their own right, easily overlooked. Indeed as Marshal McLuhan further expounds, artifacts of media, not to be overlooked, do indeed effect and affect any society and shape perception by their unique characteristics. As any society's values, norms and methods inevitably become changed by technology, social implications of new media emerge. Indeed such as asynchronous text communication. What then reveals itself as the inherent message at the very essence, for example, of asynchronous text communication? And indeed to the matter at hand, likewise hypertext? And all to what impact upon Dialectical collaboration, so fundamental to Eudemonia?  
   
For characteristics of whatever medium constitute  message in their own right, easily overlooked. Indeed as Marshal McLuhan further expounds, artifacts of media, not to be overlooked, do indeed effect and affect any society and shape perception by their unique characteristics. As any society's values, norms and methods inevitably become changed by technology, social implications of new media emerge.
    
To wit:  Hypertext resists the single linear narrative.
All traditional text, whether in printed form or in computer files, is sequential, meaning that there is a single linear sequence defining the order in which the text is to be read. (...) Hypertext is nonsequential; there is no single order that determines the sequence in which the text is to be read.36 
  
  — 'Hypertext Theory' by Thorsten Schreiber
 
Why use hypertext? "Because in general, humans learn better associatively [...] hypertext operates very similar to the way our brains do--in a series of networks, or associations--as opposed to a linear path.” 
   
— Hypertext and writing: An overview of the hypertext medium by Kimberly Amaral
 
Site visitors to FoolQuest.com may tend to follow not authorial intent, but whatever ones own individual characteristic motivation. FoolQuest.com pursues matters of greatest importance to the author. But the reader follows their own priorities of information resource, relatable concerns and consensual Existential Validation. And all of that inevitably entails making decisions. And making decisions and setting priorities, often arouses ambivalence, even crimestop and irritation.
 
Hyperlinkage often serves in similar function to footnoting and attribution. But there can also be much more to it: Unidirectional linear text may be likened unto any plodding lecture, whereas by contrast, sophisticated hypertext prompts and anticipates different possible avenues of question and exploration in virtual conversations, interaction with the reader, to ignite and to supplement human discussion and interaction in turn. Linear connection then gives way instead to variable configuration, shedding new light. Generally friendly Netizens researching whatever their own concerns, entertainment, edification and even howsoever pandering propaganda validation, diligently follow the proverbial bread crumbs accordingly. Alas likewise also the most weirdly fanatical hostile reactionary internet trolls and flamers, unerringly tracking down whatever taboo content, opinion or expression howsoever deemed indeed most objectionable in their excruciating fragile sensibilities. By contrast, the desperately sought for star first follower, blazing the trail, shall herald the true meeting of minds and collaboration among equals in creative solution finding and Eudemonia here on FoolQuest.com For the star first follower shall be the true leader, showing others how to relate. Know thyself! It's all a matter of individual cost-benefit evaluation and expected effort. Gentle reader, if there is a better option, then take it. And if you have a better idea, then kindly do come forth and share. But come what may, one way or another, expect hard work, futility, or both.
  
Linearity of text constrains human intellect, but far less so than Totalitarian Interactivity forever leading the complacent safely about by the nose. By contrast, in their true capacity, Word Processing and hypertext have expanded human consciousness. In content and design, hypertext is a uniquely powerful and even democratizing information management technology of effective group support, collaboration and endeavor. A hypertext becomes similar to a dynamic linked list in coding for computer programming. Because, likewise, and in different ways, hypertext may group and connect myriad elements along myriad vectors of Gestalt reality through clustered mind mapping constellations, indeed even to be likened unto any central train depot or rail yard, diverging to points close by or far and wide with "the devil is in the details." Indeed, as only befitting to the complicated real world as it truly is, and research to reflect reality, a detailed hypertext is both map and territory, recursively. But a detailed hypertext can not be likened unto a tour, because a tour must remain linear with all stops scheduled in sequence. Dramatic plot ever remains linear, but reality unfolds in dharma, in the confluence of situation and circumstance, favorable or unfavorable. Indeed the mythic Hero's Journey of discovery, even in real life, doing anything really cool together, no less than in compelling drama, may begin with some sort of a map. But a map will be of little use sans wherewithal for deciding where to go next. Whereas, in any linear text, content is set in sequence, in browsing hypertext, the site visitor, Effective Active Reading strategies according to individual focus, follows variable sequence to suit their own sensemaking on the fly. Therefore, gentle reader, navigate this very hypertext for yourself, find your own way, and chart your own path to intellectual adventure! Just try not to chip a nail clicking the links! 
    
Amazing how those most virulently complaining of disorientation in navigation of FoolQuest.com, and for all evident and derisive short attention span, nevertheless unerringly home right in on whatever very specific content and minutiae so evocative to whatever their excruciatingly delicate sensibilities of picayune and scandalized prudery! Not to digress. 
 
 
 
 

The importance of salient literate critique, and the frustration of stubborn dogmatic blithe cross-purpose thereto...
 
In the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least." Indeed, prioritization becomes more important than ever, as we each and all find ourselves ensnared in an overstressed attention economy, attention ever spread so very thin. Because to quote Herbert Simon: “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” And yet, seriously, does anyone actually never read any difficult or challenging material whatsoever, even when howsoever ever even possibly at all deemed warranted or salutary? Quite to the contrary, so many people online become absorbed and devote themselves in the most esoteric and obscure deep dives, just for the engrossing challenge. Hence an attack upon effort and difficulty whatsoever, and in its own right, no matter what, just perhaps somewhat misses the point. Historically, confusing new ideas take time to digest into concise and familiar elegance. All quite regardless of such incessant and unserious objections to difficulty and effort at all, even often seemingly from all quarters nowadays. Indeed tar baby finally put to rest, being subject herein to long overdue most scathing and devastating rebuttal, in order then at long last ever to continue on topic. Fat chance! A tar baby after all, is an issue only ensnaring the unwary in struggle all the more, drawn in to contend against it.
   
Indeed, such misguided and simpleminded concerns may often be regarded by many as self-evident fundamentals of the writing craft necessarily coming prior to, and even in obviation alas, of all other more intelligent discourse. But to quote Mark Twain: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” Indeed, most charitably and at very best, actually such miserable maxims remain applicable for hack writing in every pejorative of that term. Indeed, perhaps however surprisingly to many so dogmatic, half-assed dilettantes cocksure and blithely unaware of controversy long raging across the Net, herein shall be laid bare the poverty of precisely that prevalent rigid view. For precisely those simplistic short attention maxims of simple writing style, remain flawed precept as indeed to be found featuring most prominently on cautionary lists in explicit criticism of stock bad writing advice. And make no mistake, these list are compiled by capable writers who know their craft and care.
    
Alas then the ubiquity of such all consuming preoccupation with imperatives of correct webdesign and/or simple writing style. And all quite without regard even to dangers of distortion from oversimplification. And all so as to preclude or obviate even salient and literate critique or editing remarks, much less actually engagement on topic. What disengaged proselytizing smug self-righteous invalidation, even however naively well intended. Even let alone actually antagonistic irrelevant cross-purposed soft-flame! In case actually of reading difficulty ever as inevitably arising, for serious readers and writers there remains better and more pertinent and intelligent remedy than in any such blithe anti-intellectualism.
 
Therefore, thank you gentle reader. Because not withstanding whatever antics of  inveterate complexity junkies, nevertheless and undeniably, we all live in such a tightly strained attention economy. And therefore all the more, in the immortal words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” And moreover to quote Karan Gaur: “Effort is the best indicator of interest.” But perhaps most saliently to Eudemonia, optimal reciprocal engagement accrues the highest return in like kind, for truly generous investment of precious attention so precious to and craved by all. Hence there can be no short attention propagandistic and stingy robotic formula or spouting of misguided rules, in order to replace the hard work and Active Reading of simply taking any interest, even given disagreement. Your Impossible Mission, gentle reader, should you choose to accept it!

 

 

 

In case of whatever difficulties reading and understanding text, navigating hypertext,
or in order to advise or critique prose and composition, then please
first duly consider the following:

In all good faith striving for clear expression, any serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying most reasonably and precisely, whatever manner and kind of coherent feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and relevant to authorial intent to begin with.

Pertinent critique may therefore first require adequate comprehension and Intersubjectivity, the condition wherein comprehension of message content and subject matter, on the part of the message recipient, draws ever in closer in correspondence to whatever the intended meaning of message content and subject matter on the part of the message sender.

Hence this section. Because much as argument, Socratic Dialectic, the art of controversy and the invited and appreciated exchange of criticism including Literary critique, remains the discourse possible and nourishing Dynamic Discord in case of disagreement, the conversationally adequate Socratic Dialectic of collaborative miscommunication detection and repair, remains the discourse possible and nourishing Dynamic Discord in case of even reciprocal incomprehension.

For one specific problem, given that all subordinate clauses remain both integral and salient, not every long sentence can or should be shortened. Not if thereby merely oversimplified and distorted via whatever injuriously blithe truncation of pertinent and integral salient subordinate clauses. For only simple run on sentences, like unto garden worms, may even thrive and survive being chopped up alive, into the shorter sentences that they really are all along to begin with.

Indeed, key to better comprehension may be found in more effective and fully literate reading strategy than just even howsoever somewhat robotic and linear parsing. Specifically, in first taking an overview and breakdown of sentence structure. Indeed in musical cadence, via interpretation which means choosing points of emphasis in prose much as in musical notation of any musical score.

Case in point:

In all good faith striving for clear expression, any serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying most reasonably and precisely, whatever manner and kind of coherent feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and relevant to authorial intent to begin with.

For reasons, someone takes action regarding something then further qualified.

reasons = Indeed in all good faith striving for clear expression,

someone = any serious author

action = retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying most reasonably and precisely,

something = whatever manner and kind of coherent feedback

qualifications = as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and relevant to authorial intent to begin with.
 

Be all such as may:

Alas the deviously unreceptive mean spirited and contemptuous mockery that is derisive incomprehension. Alas that merely complaining of incomprehension, is not even remotely the same thing as actually engaging and genuinely requesting clarification and then even paying interested attention to whatever response.

Therefore, please, in case of perfectly honest incomprehension, if anything truly remains unclear: Rather than vaguely denouncing whatever perceived shortcomings or harping on formal errors, grammatical, or of whatever expected and demanded conformity to stylistic conventions and simplistic declining literacy... — Or howsoever otherwise, indeed even debilitating soft-flame tactics of generally attacking writing style or even webdesign to the exclusion and evasion of substance... — Or even complaining about anything so subjective and indirect as whatever ones own reaction, even however trivial; instead first of all, freely indicate or question whatever in the message content, subject matter or meaning, that remains howsoever unclear... — Indeed, whatever remains actually not understood. There will be no offence therein. Quite the contrary.

Therefore, never let doubt silence and paralyze, much less provoke undue hostility. Don't just spout ever the same inane and clichéd bad writing advice, but fully engage. Yes, even without agreeing, unguardedly to engage with the new and as yet unknown. What a concept: The Socratic Dialectic of collaborative miscommunication detection and repair. 

Because: Honestly, if only I already knew whatever remains unclear in message content herein, how so and why, I would already have revised accordingly. Otherwise, I'm bound to guess wrong, bringing about only further confusion. So please, lets just go over it all, carefully, line by line, as ever necessary. I do as much for others. So, why all the fuss?

Can you believe and relate?

 

 

Disclaimer:  ‘Mistakes are the Essence’
The Way of the Sympathetic Copy/Language Editor or beta reader

Sorry to become so brusque, gentle reader, but the point seemingly escapes and somehow repeatedly and persistently fails to come across: 

Honestly, if only I already knew whatever remains unclear in message content herein, how so and why, I would already have revised accordingly. So please, lets just go over it all, line by line, as ever necessary. I do as much for others. So, why all the fuss? Accept no substitutes! Not without explicit prior discussion. Emphatically: No alternative process however widely extolled, shall be taken up herein, without prior ratification.
   
This then is to apologize most profusely and contritely for any and all difficulty in browsing FoolQuest.com

Emphatically, no writer or speaker must ever impose responsibility for their own expressive shortcomings, onto whatever audience so troubled and put upon. Yes, all too true: Every effort on the part of the author to write more clearly, spares successive readers needles aggravation. Such trouble spared even perhaps by any somewhat inconsiderate or confused writer, even from antiquity, accrues multiplied struggle and needless irritation plaguing any such future readers, even across the ages, unto the present day and into the future. It's never easy.

Indeed, even just maybe an actual and literal matter of life and death! For prime example, the warrior sage Carl von Clausewitz lay sick and dying as he penned his celebrated great work, cut short of the needed time to edit and revise his tortured prose into anything more polished. And no end of mischief and confusion in history ensuing, blood and mayhem attending thereupon, ensued only from his flawed composition as so entirely distinct from his sober Literary intent.

But all such remains only all the greater imperative therein, as to why indeed in all good faith striving for clear expression, any serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying most reasonably and precisely, whatever manner and kind of coherent feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and relevant.

‘Conversational Adequacy: Mistakes are the Essence’ wherein excellence in Miscommunication Competence remains crucial.

And so, with due gratitude for the able assistance of Dr. Chen Yehezkely: To wit then, outlined as following, find a Socratic Dialectic of collaborative miscommunication detection and repair: 

 

  1. 1.     Upon the event of incomprehension, ambiguity, communications error or failure, and then detection thereof, the message recipient alerts the message sender.

  2. 2.    The message sender acknowledges. And should the message sender fail to perceive or to fully comprehend any specifics or nature whereof, then the message sender follows with further inquiry thereof.

  3. 3.     Further fully engaged response then on the part of the message recipient may consist in explanatory exposition upon whatever ambiguity and/or questions in regard to whatever unclear message content, meaning or subject matter. Indeed, conceptually, whatever is not understood in message content and meaning.

  4. And as remaining entirely distinct from points of grammar or other formal error without explicit bearing upon specific ambiguity or authorial intent. And also not merely dubious and blithely disengaged citation in conformity to whatever prevalent standardized rightthink of general writing advice, conventions of style or unthinking rules. Indeed, typically so dogmatic and therefore intelligently debated by serious writers across the Internet. But not to digress.                  

  5. 4.     The message sender may then request further clarifications and ask any follow up questions, regarding whatever reply as attempted by the message recipient.

  6. 5.   Given any degree of successful explanation or question elucidating and revealing whatever initial incomprehension, ambiguity, communications error or failure, the message sender undertakes to correct and revise the message accordingly.

  7. 6.   In case any degree of incomprehension, ambiguity, communications error or failure persists, or further questions arise, then the message recipient once again alerts the message sender. And once again, should the message sender fail to perceive or to fully comprehend any specifics or nature whereof, then the message sender follows with further inquiry thereof.

  8. 7.   And the Dialectical cyclical process repeats until the dawning attainment of better Intersubjectivity with the message at last rendered crystal clear.

 

The above so flagrantly contradicts any prevailing practice predicated upon the somewhat deceptive pedantry from Epistemological and Methodological sheer commonsense to the effect that ambiguities and communications errors and failures may indeed ensue from grammatical and other formal errors or even from violations of whatever favored uniform writing style guidelines or unquestioned rules. All as may be pointed out by the message recipient, particularly given that such factors remain pertinent to understanding the nature of said ambiguities. Therefore, miscommunication repair and disambiguation thus is often thought to be accomplished by the message sender correcting whatever such formal cause of ambiguities and communications errors and failures as might be pointed out by the message recipient.

And alas therefore, no other feedback or deeper engagement shall be forthcoming in case of communications failure, until whatever such needed correction, first. Only afterwards. indeed if ever, might ensue any consideration of  meaning and authorial intent.

But even such frustratingly limited engagement may be deemed more helpful than merely regurgitating silly rules and exhortation to simple writing style. Not to get ahead of ourselves, however.

It all comes down to the distinction between problems solving and solution finding: When grammatical or whatever other formal errors are detected, then the problem to solve becomes how to correct whatever such such formal errors. But such remains only one possible means to a greater end, of raising signal out from noise, of getting a cross an idea that isn't coming through. But solution finding exceeds mere problem solving. And all manner of change and improvement open up, from any broader objective of clarification, once ambiguity of message content will be brought to light. And typically, all with an additional happy side effect of correct grammar. Not to digress.

And whereas any even somewhat pedantic and mechanical Rules Based Reasoning as of mere problem solving as of grammatical correction, ever remains more simple and predictable, also easier to modify ever as needed, in the alternative, Case Based Reasoning, both in general and particularly such as extolled herein throughout to the matter at hand, remains ever more knowledgeable and adaptable to complex and ambiguous data under ever evolving new circumstances, with greater relevance achievable via tailored and personalized solutions, and thus greater end user satisfaction.

Unlike fully engaged Socratic Dialectic, such as that of collaborative miscommunication repair, nothing new will be learned in hidebound and dull-witted pedantry to formal correction. Alas, normatively closed minded irrelevance remaining endemic in the death throws ending the lifecycle of complex social systems, any embrace of internally efficiency even arbitrarily as via whatever implementation of Rules Based Reasoning, comes in rejection of Case Based Reasoning with relevance and utility for end users in the outside real world beyond whatever bureaucratically minded routine.

Any precept of, as the only way, be all and end all, all such seemingly innocent and innocuous tar babies of fashionable anti-intellectual hack bad writing advice, remains toxic to arête, thought, and Literary richness. Cretin folly all in all, obdurate and tastelessly ill considered oversimplification, entirely sans any truly literate appreciation of meaningful depth and complexity, and entirely bereft of empathy or regard whatsoever, for authorial intent and at cross-purpose thereto.

Emphatically, critique even nitpicking writing style and authorial voice, or even hypertext webdesign, is all fine and good, even tremendously valuable. But writing, not unlike friendship, often entails ongoing struggle for expression, difficult and complicated beyond any toxic maxims of oversimplification or pedantic obsession with arbitrary rules of form. Whether for stories or business/project plans as herein on FoolQuest.com, or anything else under the sun, writing is rewriting, patient hard work, and never a waste of time.

But in searing ideological contempt, superficially to lambaste writing style, authorial voice, or webdesign, whilst calculatingly refusing to acknowledge or engage with actual message content; well that remains toxic. A malignant Anti-Socratic tactic of soft-flame. Never take the bait.

Indeed, what strange, passive hostile, short attention backhanded invalidation ever can there be, more manipulative and conflicting than whatever craven proffer howsoever ostensibly of such well meaning help and advice, but only while keeping distance? Indeed, without engaging or becoming involved? Indeed, without respect or regard toward substance and authorial intent in the first place? Of what relevance? None.

By contrast however, and to reiterate, towards any good faith philosophical investigation and discovery of elusive truth into the generation of lucid and compelling prose, any serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying precisely whatever manner and kind of feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and relevant. And under the human condition, communications struggle replete with all manner of genuine communications errors and failures, remains nigh inevitable. Indeed the necessity and blessing all therefore, of communications struggle:  Not a bug, but a feature! 

Only shopworn and well familiar old ideas are certain always to come across effortlessly. The clear and concise mainstay of science and philosophy whereupon we all rely, was once the cutting edge of challenging thought. The well familiar clear and concise great ideas whereupon we all rely, are often, historically, the product of brilliant minds in lifetimes of boiling it all down, volume by volume, page by page, line by line, word by word again and again. Indeed, like photography, easy to do but difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, patient hard work and never a waste of time. And to always get it right the first time, say very little and dare nothing new.  

What then best may be done, indeed ever incase as so nigh inevitable, of communications failure and reciprocal incomprehension? That is the question! And the best answer remains nothing more or less than full collaboration together in ever ongoing detection of communications errors and ambiguities, all towards ever ensuing Socratic Dialectic of  collaborative miscommunication repair, all as remaining so indispensable to excellence in Miscommunication Competence so crucial towards Conversational Adequacy. Can we be serious? As the saying goes, no question is too foolish to ask, and no answer too wise to be given. Therefore question freely in case of incomprehension. There is no shame in it, but actually quite the opposite: Dialectical sharp attention and respect. 

Well may one ask: What then can possibly be so wrong merely with anything seemingly so innocuous as advocating simple writing style? Plenty. Is then simple writing style merely a means to an end after all, or actually an end in and of itself, a proverbial sacred cow beyond all admissible reproach or substitution? Because if simple writing style remains only a perfectly sensible means to improve writing clarity, then just perhaps, simple writing style is only one possible strategy among any number of entirely viable strategies and alternative for quality and clarity in writing. Of which, barring sheer dogmatism, the various merits each whereof, might be compared under varying circumstances, in order best to choose among them, as ever suitable, case by case.

Indeed, just to the contrary, what about actually enriching  the exploration and emphasis of prose, even with the most needles ornament and stylistic flourish, as have the educated citizens and Literary masters in days of yore? Indeed, merely consider the previous sentence: It runs a little long, yet remaining well balanced. In the English language, we never use five words when eight will do!

     •   On the Art of Writing: What Did Thomas Jefferson Really Say?

After all, again to reiterate, writing is like photography: Easy to do but difficult to do well. Indeed, in whatever context or application, writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time. But to always get it right the first time, say very little and dare nothing new. And therefore ever the same interminably ubiquitous stock bad writing advice, and especially the unending witless anti-intellectual semiliterate exhortation only to simple mindedly simple writing style, excluding any complexity of thought, all that be roundly damned! We have all heard that stubborn mantra before. And we'll hear it ever again and again, as long as there are such blithely unaware dogmatists to repeat it.

Indeed, to quote George Orwell: “A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing.” Nevertheless, and howsoever inconceivably to the mindset of all such blithe rightthink such as to propel exhortation only to simple mindedly simple writing style (indeed as many may be heard to insist, even at the level of a small child or a moron!!), some knowledgeable and dedicated writers yet actually disagree strongly, with precisely all such hoary blockheaded common (non)sense. Therefore, circumstance merit at long last, at least some wider awareness and acknowledgement of controversy at hand. And thereby just perhaps at long last, interesting true rebuttal beyond endless gainsaying. Indeed, any abetment in all such lazy and dogmatic regurgitation and failure of imagination, as though no one could even possibly ever disagree. Indeed, in actuality, a cursory web search will discover simple writing style featuring prominently, on several lists conveniently provided online, of stock bad writing advice. And wonder of wonders, there do remain notable contrary views, instead in defense of the richness and complexity of writing and indeed of clearest thought itself.

     •   L E S S   I S   B E S T ,  M R .  N A B O K O V

      •   Why Grammarly Is Killing My Writing Style  

      •   Why grammarly does more harm than good,
                           barring sufficient expertise beforehand, for distinguishing bad advice from good...

      •   Small sentences are boring to read .

      •   Beware, oversimplification.

    •   The Alt-Right Playbook: You Can't Get Snakes from Chicken Eggs

Onward and upward then, toward the attainment of psychological visibility to penetrate psychological asymmetry via fully engaged immersion together into Socratic interrogation, error detection and ongoing Miscommunication Competent miscommunication repair, in Dialectical collaboration among equals. Because Mistakes are the Essence. And because we only learn and progress from making mistakes, fresh bold conjecture and new mistakes instead of only ever repeating the same old mistakes. To quote Anton Chekhov: “... only he is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.”

To quote Gian Vincenzo Gravina: “A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.” Alas, ever more Existentially Absurd, we endure in an unfriendly and monological world, teeming with glorified pack mammals, self-sufficiently Solipsistic bleating sheeple, some quite famous and highly regarded, even venerated. Who only talk and never listen, not even to their own thoughts (indeed not even as perhaps soliloquizing), much less to one another, to anyone else. With no Point Of View to offer, the inattentive craving attention, void unto void, making interminably vapid small talk, talking with nothing to say about anything whatsoever in the entire universe. And indeed Solipsistic with no concept of anyone to say it to anyhow. So: Is that indeed Solipsism, soliloquy? Or is it just me?

What best might be done, in case of communications error, breakdown and failure, indeed in any event of reciprocal incomprehension? That is the question!
And there's the rub! Ensuing directly, on the one hand, my own heart felt urgent plea and best advice for requested volunteer beta readers, copy editors and the like, but on the other hand, also delineation of an important aspect of review and critique most generally. And then regards indeed not actually probortunity at hand, specific priority agenda here on FoolQuest.com toward true fulfillment and meaning in close collaboration among equals, but rather, and all too frequently and frustratingly, what others so determinedly concern themselves with instead. An impasse, then. A frustrating decoy. A proverbial tar baby to ensnare the unwary. And yet, strangely, Epistemological context and even knowledge work ethic.
To reiterate: Any serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying precisely whatever manner and kind of feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and relevant. In accordance then with non justificationism, wherein all hypothesis begins in unfounded conjecture, and without pedantic prior foundation or justification, collaborative miscommunication collaborative miscommunication repair and Miscommunication Competence, being the method undertaken herein, fully engages in ongoing communications error detection and course correction. And all as often best accomplished less by nitpicking mere formal errors, than by meticulously questioning ambiguities in actual message content.
 
Alas, ubiquitous Anti-Critical Bias ever remains toxic to any such worthy endeavor. Indeed, a writer who never exchanges critique, is no writer at all, indeed barely even a dilettante. And thin skinned writing communities that spurn critique, generally amount to bogus support groups for cosplaying as writers. The very term: 'critique' after all, remains merely a fancy French word for criticism. And the Socratic Dialectical practice of controversy remains the welcome and invited exchange of criticism. For frank and open criticism remains nothing hostile or threatening, but inherently friendly, an effort and expression of abiding respect and autonomy support. Only imagine then, the hapless consternation and thereby comedy trope ever at the expense of the well meaning mark, in any such Ulterior Transaction or: headgame wherein fervent request for brutally honest criticism or critique comes only from some empty headed, blithely thin skinned and no less haplessly injured Narcissist, actually craving only the most unwavering validation, and frenetically wounded by anything less.
 
But frightened tact and comment withheld, consensus and ever simmering superficial harmony thus socially expected in subtext of emotional extortion, can no longer exist as true tact of voluntary, genuine sympathetic consideration for others, sincerely compassionate outgoing sensitivity and genuine authentic friendship. Instead of only disengagement, shunning, hostility, acrimony or merely indifference and rejection, controversy, the welcome and invited exchange of criticism, remains the interpersonal engagement remaining possible and even entirely congenial in case of disagreement as forever prevailing in the human condition. But people cannot even actually disagree, in case of communications error, failure, ambiguity and reciprocal incomprehension, also ever prevalent in the human condition. What then? Alas that some remain in their madness convinced that in the face of communications error, failure, ambiguity and reciprocal incomprehension, stark and sudden utter disengagement remains their only viable option, lest miscommunication and strife therein, only continue spiraling out of control! As indeed, all too common. But not universal. And more anon. Because in actuality, miscommunication remains no more fatal and irreversible than any other kind of mistake. And no less valuable. All not to get ahead of ourselves, however.
    
Indeed, Proverbs 17:28 KJV: “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.” A passable observation or caution, nevertheless, for all peril, still a pernicious recommendation. For as the wiser and better enlightened saying goes, no question will be too stupid to ask, and no answer too wise to be given. Alas that such laudable persistence in questioning, so frequently triggers such virulent unpopularity that tastes of hemlock. For precisely such ubiquitously toxic anti-introspective anti-intellectual alienated short attention pervades. Alas, if there can be permitted no cogent discussion or conjecture or speculation upon anything not as yet well understood, then there can be no truly novel and original thoughts ever hewn from the daunting mass of the unknown in this life. Indeed to live error free and always get everything right the first time, even talking a great deal, say very little and dare nothing new.
    
Should ever one disapprove because one misunderstands, then the better one comes to understand, then perhaps thereby the more one will be reassured and the less one might eventually vex and disapprove. But if one utterly fails to comprehend but somehow so consumed with alarm and suspicion, already strongly disapproves, then because of confirmation bias, ever the better one may ever come to understand, then this may only fuel resentment all the more. After all, confirmation bias arises from accumulated corroboration while tending to downplay or ignore all refutation in the form of contrary evidence. Thus the more one learns, the more likely only the more harshly shall one disapprove! Therefore gentle reader, are we already working at cross-purposes? Alas, the self-absorbed bored, lonely and impatient short attention inspired and disingenuous bait of merely complaining of incomprehension, is not even remotely the same thing as actually requesting clarification and then actually listening interestedly. For to quote Karan Gaur: “Effort is the best indicator of interest.” And most insufferably Anti-Socratic of stone-deaf power plays, remains the self-absorbed impatient short attention mere feigning of incomprehension, but actually only disapproval. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. And confront the unknown, squarely. Never evince derisive incomprehension in case actually of bitter disapproval! For derisive incomprehension denotes contempt for anything in particular that eludes immediate clear understanding. Indeed, to quote George Orwell: “A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing.” But perhaps even most hapless of all, remain those so profoundly traumatized by formal education, who fall silent and dummy up, entirely paralyzed, or simply pretend to understand, whenever they do not understand at all. These are fools making fools of us all. And no sacred fool on any character arc of growth in wisdom and sagacity.
     
Lo and behold how one may tend to write at one's own level of understanding. Not simply because individual perspective, in the first place, remains how one understands anything whatsoever at all in order then to share with anyone else, but because ones own understanding indeed so often remains integrally and exactly the very crux of such saliently intended message content of crucial incisive perspective, all so urgently to convey in the first place. Moreover, instead relating to and tailoring whatever message to whatever expected message recipient or receptive target audience, assumes that one even predicts at all whom that might be, much less understanding them intimately. And in reality that often remains the great mystery of lonely isolation for intelligent people with anything new and different to share. And so, unmet friend, you be you, and I'll be me. And with every diligence, let us strive together at bridging between us in order to grapple with all that everyone remains so desperate to know. Or else, if all of that seems just too much hard work, then FoolQuest.com simply might not be right for you.
 
Honestly, if only I already knew whatever remains unclear in message content herein, how so and why, I would already have revised accordingly.
And so, this is to apologize ever profusely and most contritely for any and all difficulty in browsing FoolQuest.com
  
Intersubjectivity is achieved when the comprehension of a message by the recipient, is brought into closer correspondence with the intended message content of the sender. Indeed a desired result which even by itself, often requires purposeful, interested, engaged and adequately attentive and sustained effort in ongoing Dialectically collaborative miscommunication detection and repair. Whereas bypassing is blithe reciprocally unaware talking at cross-purpose, is exchange which is not genuine communication because it lacks sufficient Intersubjectivity and does not carry at all the same meanings or even purpose, intention or point at all between the increasingly exasperated participants as communications errors frequently increase and spiral out of control, that is, if only the discrepancy ever dawns on anyone. Once at last detected, what then shall be done in the event of communications failure and reciprocal incomprehension?
 
Either engagement or disengagement. Or indeed, active conflict between such directly antithetical objectives as on the one hand, deeper engagement, or on the other hand, utter disengagement. For while some delight in the challenge of communications struggle for improved Intersubjectivity out from even the most extreme reciprocal incomprehension, others only take fright, flee, dummy up or even lash out. Indeed from time immemorial, many continue to advocate such misguidedly venerated Zen abject surrender to Wittgensteinean paralysis.
 
But no less than ego, self and solitary reflection so misguidedly reviled by all Mystics, communications struggle together also remains essential in the human condition. Because as with uncertainty most generally, communications errors, failures and ambiguities are normal and inevitable, indeed indispensable to all learning, growth and autonomy. And as with any other kind of mistake, ongoing error detection and course correction remains essential. Because justificationism, the striving for firm foundation and thereby even relative certainty, by filtering out or otherwise preventing error beforehand, indeed yes: including communications failures, remains irresponsible, disastrously paralytic, repressive and confused. Because when errors of any kind inevitably slip through, what options does justificationism permit? In practice, only the worst dysfunction and acrimony. 
  
Therefore instead, as a living author, ! remain ever at your disposal, gentle reader, for any and all required or desired discussion, explanation and clarification of content whatsoever, for anyone interested enough for the effort. Indeed, effort and interest of detailed editing, actually combing over whatever text together, identifying, locating and correcting whatever communications errors or ambiguities as arising throughout prose and composition herein. Because, easy to do but difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time. And thank you, gentle reader. Because to quote Karan Gaur: “Effort is the best indicator of interest.” And because nowadays more than ever, in the immortal words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
   
Indeed perhaps via asynchronous text communication, let us then discuss whatever substantive message content as yet not readily understood. No matter what measures of clarification taken beforehand, fallibility and mistakes remain inevitable. And this includes communications failure. But it only takes a little persistence to ferret out whatever errors or ambiguities and then improve any texts, even this one. Indeed, as shall be seen, such shall ever remain the cogent lesson of needless real world drama. Indeed, a most ordinary probortunity that (alas because of a decline in literacy, what passes for education, and a lamentable wont of philosophical habits of clear thinking), should be found less daunting and embraced as more engaging: An entirely manageable problem redolent with all manner of golden opportunity and growth. Miscommunication remains no more fatal and irreversible than any other kind of mistake. And no less valuable.
 
 
 
 
How best then persistently to assist one another continually to bring across and improve clarity of initially or hitherto howsoever unclear messages?
Barring then Zen abject surrender to Wittgensteinean paralysis, there remain at least three competing general approaches in order to surmount communications difficulties:
 

 
1) To prevail upon the message sender, one way or another, to communicate more clearly and effectively.
 
Indeed, all too common and alas often unhelpful strategy in what passes for assistance to improve another's prose, may be to fob off the most general, repeated and standard writing advice, so often misguided, and so dismissively without engaging whatever message in question, and content thereof, at all. Or to point out formal errors and to cite often silly rules. And all in such uncritical imitation of all such pedantry as whereof we have all been exposed as dutiful pupils figuratively set, metaphorically to jump through proverbial hoops, until robotic proficiency is attained. Alas, all of that only goes so far.
   
Worse, a particularly manipulative and unscrupulous message recipient in monumental bad faith, may seek power over the struggling message sender, by blithely refusing to listen. This toxic headgame is named: The stone-deaf powerplay. Or they can tune out from all thought. And this may be dubbed: The stone stupid power play.
  
2) To prevail upon the message recipient, one way or another, to decode the message more skillfully and effectively.
 
As for example, when a math teacher asserting power and authority, pressures the dutifully submissive student, first to learn more math, in order thus better to understand an equation or math problem, solve whatever puzzle, and at last fully and correctly comprehend. It remains however, that any better pedagogue might be more helpful, rather than simply abandoning any helpless pupil to their own devices. For such remain the evils of Inductivism. Not to digress. The point remaining as to how power relations frequently remain frustrating, unilluminating, oppressive and counterproductive.
  
3) Or, evidently, least commonly routine among alternatives, for sender and recipient, without subtext or implication of ill intent and willful obscurantism, to share responsibility and strive together for clear explanation and successful communication. For well beyond all stubborn and clueless pedantry, such remains, The Way of the Sympathetic Copy/Language Editor or beta reader.
     
As indeed (wait for it!) perhaps as allegorically glorified in the Science Fiction motion picture blockbuster: ‘Arrival,’ wherein as rational actors in all good faith, heroes of scientific discovery, by their shining example of ever redoubled effort, demonstrate for us all how to participate in ongoing communications struggle. Indeed, as cinematic rôle models by their example teaching us all how best to relate, human scientists and outer space aliens as portrayed on screen, are seen to engage tirelessly together, persisting for as long as it takes, in unflagging and nigh heroic communications struggle. Persevering indeed, until at last reaching Intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity as achieved when the comprehension of a message by the recipient, is at last brought into closer correspondence with the intended message content of the sender. Indeed, in Socratic Dialectical collaboration among equals. Because, writing is like photography: Easy to do, but difficult to do well. Indeed, writing is rewriting, patient hard work and never a waste of time.
 
 
Consider how in troubleshooting the appearance, presentation or functionality of any webpage or other hypertext, just as with software in general, it may be helpful and necessary to describe, and to answer questions about user interaction and experience. A narrative sometimes referred to as: the user story. In attempting end usage of whatever system, a website or anything else, what were you trying to do? What did you do? What result did you seek? What then actually occurred? What result? Then together, Dialectically, investigation and remedy of whatever technical issues, may ensue. And as can be seen, troubleshooting incomprehension and/or miscommunication, remains actually somewhat similar. In reading and working your way through whatever body or composition of prose, what were you trying to do? What did you do? What result did you seek? What then actually occurred? What was the result? Then together, Dialectically, investigation and remedy of whatever communications errors and ambiguities, may ensue.
    
Obviously, even with the help of the author, trying to figure out what another struggles to communicate, by analyzing and correcting whatever errors and ambiguities, will always be more difficult and require more effort, then simply reading any corrected version afterwards. But only via the extra effort of Socratic Dialectical collaborative miscommunications repair, the means by which lucid and substantive prose ever arises at all, does lucid prose and composition arise out from the fundamental Epistemological human condition of perpetual communications struggle. All therein, easy to do but difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time.
   
Indeed, how poorly people tend to understand one another, and often so blithely unawares, bypassing. For bypassing here means, communication at blithely unaware cross-purpose. As for example, when different people talking together, use the same word but unsuspectingly mean entirely different things.
 
If only appreciation might finally dawn on folks, just how extreme and pervasive actually remains the phenomena of bypassing, and just how little consensus there truly is, even upon the most fundamental burning issues. Only then perhaps the less they might all balk at the necessary effort and diligence of Dialectical collaboration in ongoing miscommunication detection and repair, replete with philosophical habits of clear thinking.
 
For bypassing, blithe reciprocally unaware talking at cross-purpose, is exchange which is not genuine communication because it lacks sufficient Intersubjectivity and does not carry at all the same meanings or even purpose, intention or point at all between the blithely unsuspecting participants. Hence the aware frustration at the revelation and realization of communication failure and reciprocal incomprehension, constitutes a giant step forward out from that fools' paradise of blithe bypassing. Indeed, improved Intersubjectivity is achieved when the comprehension of a message by the recipient, is brought into closer correspondence with the intended message content of the sender. Indeed a desired result which even by itself, often requires purposeful, interested, engaged and adequately attentive and sustained effort in ongoing Dialectically collaborative miscommunication detection and repair. And alas, if all of that will be too much to ask, even so as to afford merely whatever most preliminary discussion any chance at all, then strategic discourse can only choke, sputter, collapse and dissipate.
   
I simply cannot abide helpless ninnies who dummy up when they don't understand, any more than flagrant obscurantists who obdurately refuse to help when they are not understood! As the saying goes, no question is too stupid to ask, and no answer too wise to be given. Never try to fake it. Don't make do just getting the gist of things. Whenever you don't understand, please just speak up! Because, rest assured gentle reader, that you can always rely upon me  to do as much for you. Always point out and/or correct ambiguities, linguistic or otherwise, as ever arising. Indeed, I certainly will. Because:  

‘Conversational Adequacy: Mistakes are the Essence’ wherein excellence in Miscommunication Competence remains crucial.

For the umpteenth time, yea blistering blockheads! And you know who you are! Emphatically, the only way for anyone to help anyone else better to get across whatever they strive to express and to communicate, is via Miscommunication Competence in ongoing miscommunication repair, Dialectically, wherein indeed Mistakes are the Essence towards excellence in Miscommunication Competence so crucial for conversational adequacy. Indeed, first for the message recipient to detect and to analyze whatever ambiguity or confusing error. And then somehow for said message recipient to convey to the message sender any indication of whatever in particular as may be, that the message recipient fails to comprehend, how so and why. Together detecting events of unfolding communications failure in close cooperation, an interaction most organic and spontaneous onsite in IRL or even as telepresent in remote real time voice communication with or without video. And never otherwise! Indeed, capable skill of Active Reading and Listening strategy, so much more conscious and deliberately learned within any medium of asynchronous text communication. Because, easy to do but difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time.

 
It will be easy simply to assume that speaking, writing, or any other mode of composition and expression, all remain active, whereas any such mode of message reception such as reading or listening, all remain passive and fairy automatic in decoding whatever message even on the fly. Indeed, such ease remains for many exactly the ideal and standard of clarity. And yet, nevertheless, Active Reading and listening are indeed far from passive. Intellectual and interpretive participation entailing construction of alternative narratives, imagination and visualization, requires adjustment of emphasis to suit one's own interests, and assembly of the story or information into whatever the cognitive schemata and context that make up one's own systems of knowledge and belief. Indeed, as Eve Tushnet expounds in ‘Eros and Education,’ Eros, so alluring and enticing and yet so repellant and threatening, is no complacent and unquestioningly likeminded fearfully conflict avoidant uncritical willful positivity and superficial harmony, but rather to the contrary, nothing more or less than meaningful depth of reciprocal engagement and connection traversing into profound alien difference. — Off guard and drawn in, ideas, experience, new and uncanny subjective perception, the familiar made strange, and the strange familiar, Ontology, Phenomenology, poetical Axiology, very identity and all. Indeed, psychological visibility that penetrates psychological asymmetry. For what then can there ever be the more utterly subversive and disruptive than the core motivation that is named: Eros?  

Alas then that yet another among that plethora of toxic headgames, will be somehow to proffer whatever sort of generic help or assistance, criticism or critique, but without engagement with actual content, or evidence of even having even attempted to read that which one critiques. Thus so innocently professing help and good intention, even in the act of sly invalidation and disengagement. And tactics thereof include all manner of pedantic irrelevance, silly rules, hack and robotic and stock bad writing advice, indeed particularly such as all braindead exhortation to simple writing style. Even citation of formal errors, may be no substitute instead for posing interested questions pertaining to, or pointing out ambiguity in, actual message content. Alas, to reiterate, merely complaining of incomprehension, is not even remotely the same thing as actually requesting clarification and then even paying interested attention to whatever response. Indeed, via pertinent questions as to the subject matter of prose. Whatever remains ambiguous and not understood. Because only then does actually relevant feedback indeed become possible. But without attentively relevant feedback, then simply left to guess, one remains likelier to guess wrong. And hence in every effort at better clarification, only sowing and exacerbating miscommunication ever all the more. The point herein to drive home, remains that in order to help another to revise more clearly, first penetration together of authorial intent remains key. For the most part, what follows remains less actually difficult, but rather merely systematic and even at all somewhat laborious, if only given any perseverance without balking at the effort, focus and concentration. In other words, just stick with it and give the process any sort of a chance!

To receive a message means then to decode it. And the key first of all, to full engagement with message content that one as yet does not comprehend, ever remains in Effective Active Reading and listening strategy, after all, an art. There is no helping another to communicate more clearly, until first together gleaning authorial intent, or identifying and locating specific ambiguity, in whatever the author struggles to express, even in a short sample text. Such remains optimally reciprocally engaged and involved collaboration in the Socratic Dialectic of ongoing miscommunication repair. Only then can specific and cogent rewrites be suggested. And that goes to the very soul of cogent and sympathetic copy editing/beta reading and critique. There are no short cuts. Because, easy to do but difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time. Even simplification without oversimplification, remains ever fraught with no end of pitfalls.

And in the abiding consternation of Joe Bob Briggs: “I can't believe I still have to explain this!” Alas, there often remains a certain ethos at hand, of passive hostility, rigid pedantry and stubborn unhelpful demands of those one does not already understand and agree with. And all in rejection of faliblism or non justificationism, indeed at all of the Hypothetico-deductive model of ongoing error detection and course correction. Embracing instead the long debunked yet enduring ideology of Inductivism: of certainty attained by somehow avoiding mistakes entirely. Perhaps indeed serving as misguided inspiration for ceaseless exhortation only to the most simple writing style. Hence refusal fully to engage in Socratic Dialectical collaboration of miscommunication repair. From the stubborn and obdurate blithe conviction arising from ever shorter attention span, that no effort from anyone involved, is actually required in communication or in thinking in the first place. In a word: anti-intellectualism. 

Not to dispute with Marshal McLuhan, but the content, the meaningful substance, the information and ideas, of any message, "the payload" as it where, all remain distinct from whatever vehicle, means, media or format of communication. And even if substance is somehow truly obscured by whatever fine points of style and presentation, even so, substantive questions regarding content, will likely remain more illuminating than pedantically citing whatever sort of rule, established, observable or for better or worse, merely invented. Let alone actually antagonistic irrelevant cross-purposed soft-flame: Indeed, whatever lamentably blithe persistence and obsession with form to such adamant exclusion and disregard of substance and content. Because, no matter why anything is unclear, in order then to make sense, first of all, statement shall be required, as to precisely what is unclear and how so. And only then, why. Not to mention perhaps also specific location within whatever text or message body. Or any specific question or context unanswered. Only then, may different strategies come to bear, in resolving whatever ambiguity then emerging and revealed. Question whatever is not understood. Such, there can be no adequate substitute for close engagement with substance of message content. One cannot actually help from any position of aloof distance and distain, such toxic headgames, ambivalence and needless real world drama.

    
Alas then that for for many, clearly such reciprocal endeavor as herein extolled, indeed Socratic Dialectical collaboration among equals, over all or in whatever special case, remains no less utterly unheard of and quite inconceivable! Such willful halfwits expect and demand of everything to be simple, superficial, inattentive and easy. After all, they do not care to be challenged or surprised. And such remains short attention anti-intellectualism: impatient stupidity as an ideological lifestyle choice that can hardly suffice responsibly for capable deliberation together in serious fiction writing, much less business and project planning in collaboration towards new venture creation precisely, all precisely as extolled here on FoolQuest.com Because “The devil is in the details.” Alas antithetically to all as herein recommended and requested, there prevails at large, a blithe mentality of peer pressure, under the inexplicit yet staunch conviction that the competent writer on their own, must write correctly off the cuff and without effort, in stream of consciousness, knowing and complying with all what is expected of them. Entirely different from any mere acknowledgement that the writer remains fallible, as are we all. Because, and to reiterate, easy to do but difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time. Alas, despite ever more lip service to learning even only from our mistakes, nevertheless and all the more, the dread of error yet endures, culturally and psychologically. Not to mention lamentable though blithely unacknowledged decline in literacy, Active Reading and Listening. Nor therefore is evoked any appeal in veneration to the timeless disciplines of the writing craft. Indeed, such may even be treated with contempt. Instead the implication lingers, that dutiful writers must cheerfully abide with the presumable infallibility of prevailing fashion and dumbing everything down in order to spare everyone the dire embarrassment of learning and growth. That is, if any standards of writing quality are even acknowledged at all. For so the saying goes: “De gustibus non disputandum est:” There is no disputing tastes. So much then, for art appreciation and critique, which, after all, remains nothing other than the perpetual dispututation of tastes! Not to digress.
    

Metacognition, being the primary focus of cognitive philosophy, arguable historical precursor to psychodynamic psychology, only means any howsoever at all systematic conscious awareness and introversion into whatever one's own thought processes and patterns. Metacognition remains ever crucial to any self assessment of knowledge and capability. And herein by extension, linguistic metacognition applies to the identification, both over all and  line by line, of the mechanics not merely of reading comprehension, but of incomprehension, of communications failure and breakdown, of specific failure in linguistic comprehension of whatever message content received, indeed as ever arising. Indeed, beyond grammar, of syntax, even going line by line, or in over all composition back and forth as many times as it may take. And linguistic metacognition on the part of both message senders and message recipients, remains ever crucial to Active Reading and Listening strategies with excellence in Miscommunication Competence and conversational adequacy for whatever miscommunication repair, for capably troubleshooting any whatever miscommunication and incomprehension, Dialectically. 

Alas also, that a particular and daunting linguistic metacognitive fallibility persists, even in the most sincere good faith, in that subjectively, whatever intended message already all makes such self perceived seemingly perfect sense to the sender. And all because after all, the sender already knows, or believes to know, full well, whatever it is that the sender so struggles to express and to communicate to anyone else. And all even quite aside from, additionally, the human tendency of projection. Meaning, as with empathy, to relate to others indeed from ones own condition, but erroneously. At any rate, the sender then, even in deepest contemplation alone, may be rendered quite blind to any undetected narrative gaps. And after all, no writer or speaker must ever impose responsibility for their own expressive shortcomings, onto whatever audience so troubled and put upon. Yes, all too true: Every effort on the part of the author to write more clearly, spares successive readers needles aggravation. Such trouble spared even perhaps by any somewhat inconsiderate writer, even from antiquity, accrues multiplied struggle and needless irritation for any such future readers, even across the ages, unto the present day. It's never easy.

       
Worse, what constitutes vital context for one, perhaps personage as yet entirely unacquainted or even as yet unborn denizen of whatever far flung tomorrow, amounts to belaboring of the obvious, for another no less worthy. Vexingly, whatever needs of any known or unknown immediate or future recipients of whatever message, even moment by moment let alone across ages of changing times, often remain such a mystery. And let alone actually disagreement. Not to digress. All hence ongoing communications struggle not just by trial and error, but persistent critical thinking and analysis, remains no anomaly, but entirely normal and even salutary to the human condition and salvation from self-absorbed bored, lonely and impatient short attention into passion, interest and effort.
 
Only shopworn and well familiar old ideas are certain always to come across effortlessly. The clear and concise mainstay of science and philosophy whereupon we all rely, was once the cutting edge of challenging thought. The well familiar clear and concise great ideas whereupon we all rely, are often, historically, the product of brilliant minds in lifetimes of boiling it all down, volume by volume, page by page, line by line, word by word. Again, easy to do but difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time. And to always get it right the first time, say very little and dare nothing new.  

For again to quote Karan Gaur: “Effort is the best indicator of interest.” And as we each and all find ourselves ensnared in an overstressed attention economy, attention ever spread so very thin; indeed to quote Herbert Simon: “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” In the words then, of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” And thank you gentle reader. Because nowadays more than ever, in the immortal words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

And once at last prose and composition are rendered adequately lucid, good faith authorial responsibility shall be well discharged and fulfilled. Attacking writing style, composition and even somehow thereby character Ad Hominem, while simply ignoring substantive content or evading pointed criticism, used to be the favored stock diversionary soft-flame pseudoengagement tactic in order to sidestep ideas and information of which, actually, the reviewer somehow disapproves. Then eventually howsoever faulty webdesign eventually supplanted politically objectionable writing style and composition as the favored red herring. It's always something!

According to Quote Investigator, in the words not as misattributed to Alexander Butcher himself merely quoting, but of George Orwell no less:  "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people things they do not want to hear.” So let the reader own their own emotions. And quite without any authorial obligation of pandering thereto. Let alone slavery to dullardly precept of only the most simple writing style, indeed even at the level of a small child or a moron. That obdurate reduction has never been, nor will ever be, the be all and end all.

Again, any serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying precisely whatever manner and kind of feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and relevant. Indeed rejecting all such seemingly innocent tar babies and fashionable anti-intellectual hack bad writing advice as the  only way, be all and end all. All in all, entirely sans any truly literate appreciation of meaningful depth and complexity, and entirely without empathy or regard towards authorial intent. A tasteless ill considered doctrine.

What then can possibly be so wrong merely with anything seemingly so innocuous as advocating simple writing style? Plenty. Is then simple writing style merely a means to an end after all, or actually an end in and of itself, a proverbial sacred cow beyond all admissible reproach or substitution? Because if simple writing style remains only a perfectly sensible means to improve writing clarity, then just perhaps, simple writing style is only one possible strategy among any number of entirely viable strategies and alternative for quality and clarity in writing. Of which, barring sheer dogmatism, the various merits each whereof, might be compared under varying circumstances, in order best to choose among them, as ever suitable, case by case. Indeed, just to the contrary, what about actually enriching  the exploration and emphasis of prose, even with the most needles ornament and stylistic flourish, indeed as have the educated citizens and Literary masters in days of yore? Indeed, merely consider the previous sentence: It runs a little long, yet remaining well balanced. In the English language, we never use five words when eight will do!

Of course, the point remaining that neither stylistic opposite negates the need for coherent feedback to the actual text, to content, rather than inattentive and obliviously dogged fixation upon blockheaded empty generalities. Cretin regurgitation of all litany, all such correct rightthink, remains no fit substitute to be fobbed off for the effort whatsoever at fully engaged and relevant cogent critique or even beta reading and copy editing. To reiterate, Anti-Critical Bias ever remains toxic to any worthy endeavor. Indeed, a writer who never exchanges critique, is no writer at all, indeed barely even a dilettante. And thin skinned writing communities that spurn critique, generally amount to bogus support groups for cosplaying as writers. The very term: 'critique' after all, remains merely a fancy French word for criticism. And the Socratic Dialectical practice of controversy remains the welcome and invited exchange of criticism. For frank and open criticism remains nothing hostile or threatening, but inherently friendly, an effort and expression of abiding respect and autonomy support. Only that relevant criticism needs to be attentive and coherent.

   

In response, post to the for others to weigh in, oremail to: aaronagassi@comcast.netif it's private.

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
the downside
Caveat: Is  the  FoolQuest.com opportunity, Creativity Should be Social the right thing for you?

                                   WARNING: If all of this is quite simply too difficult just to read and discuss,

then how will be any easier to follow through and accomplish??!                                                                       
 
Ask yourself: What do I want, and what will it take?
And what what can I be happy doing about it?
 
How unreasonably demanding is FoolQuest.com, truly? If there is an easier course to success than first of all, simply paying attention, and not just more snake oil, then I don't know it.  Snake oil is simplistic. Reality generally turns out the more complicated, not less, and often daunting. But we can talk it over. By first taking and defining our positions anywhere on the scale or desired outcome and expectedly necessary effort, we can hope to move towards common ground. Let us consider that perhaps any correlation might be expected between organization, performance and results, first of all with the caliber of planning out from the sustained quality of discourse before hand. But those who reject such endeavor as hopeless, will never see any point in the effort and only resent the very idea and all false hope, expressing their resentment in triviality and disrespect.

Good students are enthusiastic. They join together into study groups on their own time. They are brownnosing eager goody two-shoes approval seekers, chomping at the bit to perform every dullardly fools errand put before them, hence often slyly despised by the other students, anything but enthusiastic, indeed, actually self-loathing and bitter in our oppression. But search the web, and alas, study groups are not found in any other context but schooling, formal education, what passes for education, in ever much the same heteronymous preparation for drone like travail, eager and grumbling alike, marked all for our stations in life.

Have they then forever destroyed our capacity for initiative and collaboration? Do not the oppressed fathom that we are at war with our condition of oppression, in whatever guise that oppression assumes, and whatever form that struggle for real freedom, autonomy supported by capability, may take? Prisoners of war, naturally skeptical towards the authority of their captivity, defy slave mentality and form escape comities, ever planning, preparing and finally taking serious action. So where then are the study groups and research think tanks of the rebellion, the escape committees from the rat-race? That is who I write this website for, if they will have me.

“Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow.” —  George Clinton

So if you must whine, then at least whine honestly! Stymied and intimidated by big words? Really? Bah, humbug! Stand up! Get serious!

In our arsenal we shall maintain the two taboo values of intellectual autonomy, that cannot be taken until they are willfully surrendered: Open ended and free ranging conjecture, speculation only afterward subject to critical preference via controversy which is the free exchange of criticism. But such is abstraction. And therefore serious planning demands the violation of yet a third taboo actually against bridging the distant and abstract with the proximate and practical.

Yes, the actual taboo upon strategic planning: And what can ever become more toxic than the great divide, sheer failure of imagination, between passive lofty philosophical inquiry, inert and never building strategy much less taking action, and practical discussion willfully and woefully uniformed by abstract reasoning or background research, and therefore unteachably condemned only to the most rash, simplistic and misguided action? Riddle me this: When is the concrete abstract? Answer: Whenever reasoning is argued. All sound practical consideration resorts to abstract principle, just as all sound abstract reasoning must be informed by Empirical practicality. Otherwise, positions become arbitrary. And it happens all the time! A begged question ever obtaining as to the requisite level of communication to all of lofty ambition as herein. Not to digress, however.

In the words of George Orwell: “The main motive for 'nonattachment' is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual is hard work.” Indeed, even by the present juxtaposition thereby recontextualizing the words of Sophocles: “Without labor nothing prospers.” As misattributed to Thomas Alva Edison: “Recognizing opportunity is so difficult for most people because it goes around disguised in overalls, looking like hard work!” In the words of Theodore Roosevelt: “I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him.” And in the words of Henry Ford: “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.” Although, to quote Elon Musk: “No matter how hard you work, someone else is working harder.” Or just perhaps thinking and even loving that much harder! Is then even reading this webpage and responding actually so terribly difficult thinking? And in comparison to what available alternatives and to what end? What experience or result?

As the Yiddish saying goes: “If hard work was so wonderful, the rich would keep it all for themselves.” And indeed, when it is, they do! And pay and/or charge a pretty penny for the privilege. Not just lifestyle entrepreneurship, meaning greater fulfillment and job satisfaction, coming in trade off at sacrifice of even quantifiable maximum profitability, but instead of merely going on vacation, actually paying a fee for the pleasurable transient experience of ones own dream job!

Indeed, to quote Anthony Marra: “Work isn’t meaningful just because you spend your life doing it.” After all, in the words of J.M. Barrie: “Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.” Or to quote: Maxim Gorky: “When work is pleasure, life is joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery.” And that may certainly apply no less to any natural preference towards thinking about anything else less dystressing. And so, is the infliction of whatever such supposed reading and thinking difficulty at hand upon the reader, simply well avoidable by the author? Is it all my fault? Or might it be the agenda at hand, in and of itself, life itself being at all so difficult? Or is the agenda at hand so boring? Therefore, can we please just get serious: What else should be of so much greater concern, why and how so?

All manner of demands and conditions are placed upon the individual in life, especially as pertaining to specific endeavors, often needlessly and unreasonably or even quite detrimentally. But there are also conditions that are reasonably imposed only by circumstances and of actual necessity. It's all a question of what will actually be required in order to achieve whatever ends. And as the saying goes: "No question is too stupid to be asked and no answer is too wise to be given." Conversation ought not be impoverished by restriction to the clear and familiar. The question is of the author's responsibility to their readers. -Of the clarity of the text, the effort on the part of the author beforehand to spare the readers any repetition of needless and wasteful aggravation ever after. I am not an obscurantist! But over simplification is distortion, not clarification.  Fortunately, I am a living author on the Web. I am free to continually revise from substantive criticism. I am never bound to abandon my prose as finished and deathless, as were the printed authors of olden days and pre-electronic darkness! And what a blessing: The communication and construction of new ideas is ever a struggle, reciprocally. Therefore failure of comprehension should not be a conversation killer, but indeed the most meaningful conversation starter, often surprising, sometimes frightening. To that noble end, it is always possible to offer, at the very least, copy editing remarks for clarification of any ambiguity in syntax and composition, and beyond such, analysis of concepts as may ever seem howsoever muddled or vague. Even disapproval begs question all the more so of why! The reciprocal engagement in criticism that makes for controversy, is the very opposite of both the maliciously empty hostility of flaming and of the irresponsible denial so characteristic of vague hand waving and pipedreaning.

Critical thinking tools of Dialectic include:

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
How to use FoolQuest.com  and for whom...
 
As Marshall McLuhan would have it: “The medium is the message.” Indeed, the massage in the mass age! For pervading characteristics of whatever medium constitute message in their own right, easily overlooked. Indeed as Marshal McLuhan further expounds, artifacts of media, not to be overlooked, do indeed effect and affect any society and shape perception by their unique characteristics. As any society's values, norms and methods inevitably become changed by technology, social implications of new media emerge. Indeed such as asynchronous asynchronous text communication and hypertext. What then reveals itself as the inherent message at the very essence of asynchronous text communication and hypertext? And all to what impact upon Dialectical collaboration, so fundamental to Eudemonia?  
   
For characteristics of whatever medium constitute  message in their own right, easily overlooked. Indeed as Marshal McLuhan further expounds, artifacts of media, not to be overlooked, do indeed effect and affect any society and shape perception by their unique characteristics. As any society's values, norms and methods inevitably become changed by technology, social implications of new media emerge.
Question then: What commitment is sought for or entailed, even quite simply by reading and responding indeed via asynchronous text communication to the hypertext which is FoolQuest.com?Answer: Initially, nothing so demanding. No Herculean chore of voluminous and comprehensive cult scholarship. Find anything of interest? Then please just begin, gentle reader, with anything at all specifically on topic for ensuing discussion. Let's talk! Taking it from there, a most welcome commitment should one so to chose, might be in simply to continue and to hold up ones end of conversation even in accord howsoever with individual motivation and interest. But a more difficult question must arise eventually, if all goes well: What will be the nature of whatever necessary commitment in order to carry out whatever myriad difficult projects together, as proposed herein,  for anyone so inclined?
    
In that light, the voluminously comprehensive content of FoolQuest.com as might be taken as so daunting to the casual website visitor, in context of agenda and ambition or aspiration, barely scratches the surface. And this should become obvious. Should we so choose, our work will be cut out for us. Should the very discussion thereupon then be summarily relegated to socially awkward thoughtcrime and taboo? The even forbidden question then, becomes one of feasible expectations. And what question can there be of greater practical import to high aspiration? It's daunting and complicated. What the Hell does anyone expect? The learning curve will be steep. Anyone who makes it all sound simple and easy is deluded, dishonest, or both! And anyone dismissing all as impossible and therefore trivial, can be no less toxic. And anyone without anticipation, and foreseeing no gratification, should be seeking elsewhere. Because perhaps the most important result from all deliberation in feasibility study, in business or project planning and brainstorming, may be the dawning realization of the impractical, unfeasible, or any disapointing danger of utter vexation and just no fun. But not to jump the gun:
    
How then does one read? How does one breath? You are doing it! Five minutes of full focus will decide more than a life time grumbling halfhearted short attention. FoolQuest.com is not another casually banal short attention website, trivializing anti-intellectual (anti)social media and ever more stupid smart phones grinding all of human thought and interaction down into concise and empty pabulum, out of context oversimplification, sterile, innocuous, safe and bland, yet frightening and disorienting, that has become such staple of veritably hypnotic algorithm driven adamant common expectation online. Are you intelligent, misunderstood, bored and lonely? Because FoolQuest.com only strives at serious content for serious people. FoolQuest.com strives to achieve the very antithesis of alienating braindead (anti)social media and blithe ideology ever stoked by empty and provocative clickbait algorithms. FoolQuest.com is an intentional outreach for collaboration cofounder candidates, in something new and unprecedented.
   
  • At least those pleasurably entertained, hence paradoxically more serious yet taking themselves less seriously, may therefore find whatever topics more engaging here on FoolQuest.com. And there will be no information overload, for those who devour content and knowledge resource because they find themselves intensely interested, motivated and engrossed in whatever they perceive as being most meaningful to urgent personal concern and crisis with which we all perpetually find ourselves so ceaselessly embroiled, and grapple ever tenaciously every day. Because when the going gets tough, nerds work the problem! For such remains real world drama, wherein complexity draws us in, no less than in fiction. Indeed, anyone at all finding themselves at all the less consumed, however yet  remaining capably autonomous, may yet navigate this very hypertext for themselves and find their own way, quite without Totalitarian Interactivity leading them safely about by the nose. Further more,  no one will be put off by writing style, even however rich and complex, that resonates personally. However there can be no guarantees, and your mileage may vary.
    •      
    But quite aside from variable reader disposition and satisfaction, all things to all people, indeed as to any palpable thrust of specific authorial intent, here on FoolQuest.com there remains nothing less at stake in such desperately sought for collaboration among equals taking action together, than literally the most important known intrinsic social and intellectual human needs and stimulus appetites, so vastly and catastrophically underserved in our Existentially Absurd empty lives. And all indeed in accordance with the ancient wisdom of the greatest sages of old, as rediscovered under the very cutting edge of modern science. And so, gentle reader, can you relate? Are you overwhelmed, but in a good way? Am I your unmet friend?
      
    To wit, in human interaction, what communication can there be more readily fulfilling of creativity, imagination and subversive transgression and rebellion than story crafting and counterpropaganda together? And in all of narrative, what vision can there be more alluring than that of business or project planning, bringing to bear the power of comrades in struggle summoning forth and taking the reigns of one's own destiny in disruptive innovation? Or shall we settle for anything less?
        
    Alas that so far as execution, not everyone is very good at recruitment let alone implementation of group projects all from scratch. Indeed to begin with, some such notions are better, more fully planned, fleshed out and more practical than others. And so, gentle reader, you show me yours and I'll show you mine! Let's compare notes, gentle readers, and together begin undertaking no mere fireside pipedream, but the steady hard work at our own pace, of rigorously uncompromising honest feasibility study so crucial to joy and success. The key remains, that creativity must no longer isolate brilliance. Creativity can and Should be Social.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     
     
     
     
    *
     
     
    Incomprehension is a beginning, not an impasse. Often, whatever remaining howsoever unclear is discussed, precisely because of remaining howsoever unclear. Gentle reader, do you embrace Socratic Wisdom? Can you remain comfortable with the unknown, penetrate the unknown, and then clearly explain to others? There can be no short and simplistic solutions to complex, important and interesting problems. Otherwise, wouldn't the ideas have already reached fruition? And such is the human condition. The work then, remains cut out for those of us abiding in frustration and discontent with our lives. Is analytical and strategic discourse informing subversive struggle for change, then truly so unthinkable for serious people?

     

     

    With most profuse and contrite apologies,
    and no grounds for all consuming and entirely undue mistrust,
    in case of any whatever difficulties in reading and understanding text,
    navigating hypertext, or in order to advise or critique prose and composition
    in order so very kindly to provide actually relevantly helpful and usable feedback interaction...
       FoolQuest.com remains a compendium of long webpages on a rigorously content heavy website,
    yet in actuality, subversively undaunted in barely scratching the surface. Is that so terrible for serious people?         
     
     
    For as the saying goes: No question is too stupid to ask, and no answer too wise to be given. And it is better to express needs than to spout rules. Rules are not reasons. Rules are all made up, needs are innate. And whereas even the most actually important rules are frequently broken, by contrast human needs can break you, when remaining unaddressed. Therefore we each retain every right and bear full responsibility to express individual needs to the best of ones own understanding, And yet bizarre Moralism so piously extols and extracts the chastisement of desire, even the desire for communication and the need for fully engaged writing critique instead of broadest stock advice that we've all heard so many times before, to wit: Cavalier simple minded exhortations to simple writing. Alas that all such self-righteous distance is making us all miserable.
    Communication on any level remains continual struggle: And anyone who tells us otherwise only glorifies superficiality and short attention span. But gentle reader, if you can't take anything seriously, then why should I? Alas how many cling to all manner of expectations not only as to writing style and content, but in any range of context, as to procedure and how things must be done. However, all too frequently, and with longstanding and considered good reason. expertise often embraces expectations quite different from those of ubiquitous ideology of unaware incompetence. Given the trend of contempt for expertise and science, competence itself even becomes actually contrarian: defined as opposition or rejection of popular opinion, Although the whys and wherefores may come as no secret and little surprise to anyone who actually cares to pay attention. And yes, additionally, there is anything actually at all more controversial within any field of endeavor. To be explicit, find herein bold overture, one way or the other, of perhaps even purposefully doing things at all differently. Blithe correction will then seem frustratingly blockheaded, entirely missing the point.
    To quote Sholem Asch: “Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.” And yet, though so easy to do, so difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time. And if only simple writing style is to be permitted, then we'd have to burn half the classics in all of their richness, substance and depth. Indeed the effort at rewriting and not just disposable stream of consciousness then forever set in stone, is but one of those routine and sensible expectation from serious writing, no secret to anyone paying attention, and nothing radical. Alas however, how people can be so weird and cagy. I am not an obscurantist! So goes the proverb: “The devil is in the details.” Rest assured that if I already knew and understood whatever specific ambiguities or communications errors remain, I would already have revised accordingly. People of good faith, tend to project onto others. And so do people of bad faith. It is dangerous to expect others to be just the same as oneself. Nevertheless: Gentle reader, take a chance on me: Can you take my good will on good faith? Gentle reader, will you give this a chance? 
       
    Believe me that if I already knew, I would already have made whatever needed revisions. The point herein to drive home, remains that in order to help another rewrite more clearly, first penetration of authorial intent remains key. There is no helping another to communicate more clearly, until first together gleaning authorial intent, whatever the author struggles to express, even in a short sample text. Such is fully engaged and involved collaboration in ongoing Dialectical miscommunication repair. Only then can specific and cogent rewrites be suggested. And that goes to the very soul of cogent critique. There are no short cuts of offhanded disapproval.
     
     
    Can't read this?
    Alas that for the most part with rare exceptions, the bulk of any scarce discussion regarding FoolQuest.com invariably only revolves upon one burning complaint: That of the alleged impenetrability of the prose and composition here on FoolQuest.com. After all, Netizens are just lazy, so we have all been so confidently assured. They clueless somnambulists must then be catered to and placated at all times, lest they rouse to disapproval and spike the all holy algorithm. And therefore there can be nothing at all challenging or substantive. In actuality however, prevailing and pandemic short attention undermining public literacy and cognition, is clearly an expectation so assiduously cultivated in an unending and wearisome deluge of trivializing clickbait media distraction and glorified dilettantery. It's so convenient! Bah, humbug!

    As the saying goes, no question is too foolish to ask, and no answer too wise to be given. Therefore question freely in case of incomprehension. There is no shame in it. Can we be serious? In truth, Active Reading and due diligence, the wherewithal to digest, filter and ponder for oneself on the fly, anything more substantive, indeed even a densely informative and involved website the likes of FoolQuest.com, must surely remain the very least of requisite fully engaged research capability and enthusiasm in deliberation together towards any true and heady collaboration among equals, the prime objective of FoolQuest.com, the ever subversive website of substantive communication towards purposeful interaction and innovation rather than ubiquitous and interminably banal small talk. 

    To fathom authorial intent, leave us face it: FoolQuest.com is no casual read for short attention. And yet, the casual reader need not vex. As per the notorious multiple p's: Properly Purposeful Pre-Planning and Prior Preparation Prevents Preemptive Production of Painfully Piss Poor Performance. What scoundrels then, what knaves and fools, dare tell us all that everything must be either completely easy or else impossible and taboo? Only the oppressor discourages the masses from thinking too deeply or hoping for too much. Beware cocksurety and deluded wishful thinking on the one hand, and dire defeatism on the other! Alas, all too often then, the less one knows, the more confident, the more that one so erroneously believes that indeed one knows. For such is the monumental naivety and hubris of unaware incompetence. Instead, let us then each embrace Socratic Wisdom, by gauging and owning for oneself, the true scope of ones own ignorance and how little one actually knows. And remember that the practice of controversy, the very soul of free expression, rationality and shit from Shinola, being the free, invited and appreciated exchange of criticism, keeping us honest, remains inherently friendly, a most sincere expression of abiding respect. And therefore short attention, conformity and anti-intellectual consensus of uncritical common expectations all be damned!

    Again, Active Reading strategy may constitute the very least of due considerations and diligence. Because, for any earnest ambition or aspiration, for any desired outcome or experience less ordinary, the alas so frequently ignored objectively real practical question obtains, as to what shall actually be required, realistically, of us each. And the least of what we must each and all need decide responsibly for oneself autonomously, remains: What shall be deemed important enough for whatever degree of focused effort elicited or entailed, and what will be at stake, personally? For such is criteria of self selection and arête. And thank you, gentle reader. Because in the immortal words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."

    To Hell with "correct" simple writing and the homogenizing and style destroying Artificial Stupidity of Grammarly!
    Writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time! And authorial intent remains the worthy focus and objective together of actual critique.
    Even sheer incomprehension is a beginning and no dire impasse. Critique is a dialogue. And a writer is no writer, who will never engage in critique.
    Please believe me: If I already understood precisely whatever might remain unclear, how so and why, I would already have revised accordingly. Hence my exasperation.
    Please CLICK HERE for full exposition ever as needed, regarding the proffer of cogent critique and editing remarks. Thank you.
     
     

     

     

     

     

     

     
     
    ‘Mistakes are the Essence’
    Intersubjectivity via fully engaged Dialectical conversational adequacy and ongoing miscommunication repair
     
    If anything is not clear, won't anyone please just go over the text with me, even just a paragraph or two, simply to locate, Identify and help me edit anything howsoever unclear? Honestly, please believe me, if I already knew specifically whatever was unclear how so and why, I would have already made the needed revisions. But I don't like guessing games. I tend to guess incorrectly and waste everybody's time. Alas that complaint of incomprehension is simply not the same thing as request for clarification. Alas that people often only remember whatever their own feelings, and worse, some tend to actout and bully by flaming.
        
    Subjective sensations of confusion often discourages engagement in further communication. Simply giving up that way, and just dummying up, is regrettable. Because in the alternative, another better possible response might be to further ponder and investigate. Or better still, there may be opportunity to question. As the saying goes, no question is too stupid to ask, and no answer too wise to be given. As everybody knows, we only learn from our mistakes. And this includes confusion and incomprehension.
        
    Since time immemorial, controversy persists upon such fundamental questions as: What to do about ignorance, simply not knowing? Some even find the courage to speculate. And what to do about error, about making mistakes? Some courageous souls learn from mistakes, and endure committed to ongoing error detection and course correction. What to do in the event of disagreement? Some engage in the art of controversy, which is the open, welcome and appreciated exchange of criticism. Because criticism is inherently friendly. Alas however, too many take umbrage and actout. Some will never admit mistakes, and strive to avoid them like the very plague, Many therefore, in contending with thin-skinned Anti-Critical Bias,  come to equate disagreement with strife, and therefore deplore all expression of disagreement. Alas, in the famous adage of Sigmund Freud: "That which is not expressed, is actedout." Indeed, even most dishonestly, controlling and manipulatively. And all in such such harmful desperation for superficial harmony.
     
        
    Moreover, to  make matters even worse, somehow, too few seem to find the wit also to pose the very question: What to do in case of flat out incomprehension? What if we fail to communicate and do not yet understand one another? Frustratingly, all too many simply yet fall silent and dummy up in resentment or embarrassment, or even pretend to understand when actuality they do not. But there is better alternative, first in openly declaring incomprehension, and then meticulous process whereby to discover and identify specifics of incomprehension, then to bring about lucid reciprocal comprehension called: intersubjectivity, bringing about correspondence between message as in the mind of the recipient, and the message as intended by the sender.
       
    The effort can be so frustrating, seeking to engage with others who just won't play ball. Yet perhaps the expectation remains too great. To begin with, complaint of incomprehension is simply not the same thing as actually requesting clarification, much less, as per Simone Weil, the rarest and purest generosity in helpfully paying attention, the level of feedback and critique that writers may actually deem beneficial.
     
    Indeed, nor does even the most strident demand for writing to be more clear, imply good will and cooperation to help, facilitate or to explain whatever the problem or ambiguity needing correction might be. Because that may entail Active Reading and Listening strategies, whereas short attention span, only skimming the simple and familiar, may promote assumptions that writing is similarly easy, with the expectations of the stream of consciousness to run sparkling clear, direct and shallow in all things and for all people.  But even in honest, trustworthy and respectful good faith, in real life no less than fiction, there may remain challenging dramatic obstacles of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and incomprehension outright. And this is no anomaly, but merely fallibility in the human condition. What then must be done in case of incomprehension of any message whereof one desires to know the substance? After all, we only learn from openly detecting and correcting our mistakes, much as from rough draft to polished prose. In the words of Neil Gaiman “The process of doing your second draft is the process of making it look like you knew what you were doing all along.” And fault finding to correct may often require then assistance of a willing reader to help pick the prose apart without neurotic sulking and complaint.
           
    Gentle reader, is there anything in the present text that you do not yet understand, that so far remains unclear to you? Frankly, are you even interested? And is there anything you struggle to work out and express in response? Alas, anxiety and even sheer Anti-Socratic ideological hostility often manifests as derisive incomprehension. Otherwise disagreement and even disapproval may be expressed in candor and lucidity. Gentle reader, whatever your incomprehension may be your greatest gift to me, if only you will share! Alas, nothing so helpful ensues from paralytic anxiety or simmering hostility as all too often engenders merely 'Dismissive Incomprehension, a derisive protest of purported incomprehension in order to dismiss, demean, denigrate and undermine another's position. Instead, the discovery of ignorance should confer every precious blessing of Socratic Wisdom. Indeed, a feature of such anti-intellectual denial, that inculcated defense mechanism that Orwell named: crimestop, the deeply conditioned reflex of curtailing  thoughtcrime, is that important questions are taboo and even actually regarded as boring by the fanatical hosts of the aforesaid crimestop memplex, so shockingly bereft of all painstaking linguistic metacognition and unflagging philosophical habits of clear thinking.
        
    f anything is not clear, won't anyone please just go over the text with me, even just a paragraph or two, simply to locate, Identify and help me edit anything howsoever unclear? Honestly, if I already knew specifically whatever was unclear how so and why, I would have already made the needed revisions. But I don't like guessing games. I tend to guess incorrectly and waste everybody's time. Alas that complaint of incomprehension is simply not the same thing as request for clarification. Alas that people often only remember whatever their own feelings, and worse, some tend to actout and bully by flaming.        
       
    Many passing by in silence, choose not to engage. But there are also various evasive and ambivalent conceits of limited or pseudoengagement, for whatever reason declining  to engage but without simply coming out and saying so. Although "soft-flame" remains the worst, there are many styles of pseudoengagement. For example, variations upon the same advice towards simple writing style, are all too often so cavalier and blithely proffered. And this can be frustrating, because such generality falls short of engagement with whatever work at hand and the content thereof, let alone seeking at all to fathom authorial intent. And engagement with authorial intent is where the most valuable writing help and advice actually begins, even for the sake of better clarity and simplification without oversimplification, let alone actually further exploration upon whatever topic and enrichment of text. The advice that any text requires stylistic simplification, may often conceal a complaint of incomprehension eliciting such needless discomfort and anxiety. Because incomprehension, no more than disagreement, is no barrier, only a Dialectical beginning from Socratic Wisdom.
        
    Moreover, while there are many ever popular and even fine variations in such exhortation towards simple writing style, it will be more serious also to remain ever aware that there are many wise and cogent arguments in defense and in support of all manner of writing, indeed, even at any risk of pretension, among them the finest works of Literature and whatever aspiration to those values, and all that in whatever way and for whatever reason quite simply does not necessarily abide by even the most excellent among all those various yet similar maxims and methods of more simple writing style. In short, that the question remains actually debatable, a matter of context, and by no mean any simple matter for smug disengaged confidence and complacency. The movement in avocation of simple writing style is important, having emerged in rebellion against writing that lacks more simple transparency, whether because of sheer mendacity or merely ineptitude and obsession. Alas that such now classics and revered wisdom in the avocation of simple writing style, is nowadays so often now so readily and blithely bandied about, even so inappropriately and over simplistically, in misguided attempt to avoid mistakes instead of doing the work of detecting and correcting errors in order thereby to learn from our mistakes.
        
    Consider the case of how court stenographers each develop their own unique shorthand, unintelligible to anyone else. And beyond such peculiar modern special case, precedent in semiliterate antiquity was common place: Because, most anciently, writing began simply as a means of private personal note taking. Indeed to this day, there are still those who tie knots as personal reminders, as knots tied on string were a means of writing and record keeping. Problems began when writing, so idiosyncratic a discipline, came into practice as a means of communication. And there's the rub: When I strive to get my ideas across but another fails to grasp my deathless prose and take my meaning, I often find myself at something of a loss, frustrated because every part of my composition seems so perfectly lucid to me, because I already know and understand, or at least think so, all that I intend and so struggle to express to others! And in truth, we are none of us so transcendently evolved beyond that primordial struggle of thinking together. But we can be poorer for the abrogation thereof.
        
    But why, some will yet protest, must the present hypertext remain so densely written? Yet what is so wrong with substantive and therefore densely written prose, only well phrased in properly ordered composition? To quote William Deresiewicz: “It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise” And hypertext facilitates detailed presentation that creative web of association upon whatever topic at hand. For to quote Henry Louis Mencken “there is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.” Oversimplification is distortion. At least at first, in careful correct language, important new ideas actually tend to be somewhat convoluted, becoming concise only over a span of ongoing discourse. Hence aversion and incapacity dense writing becomes a serious intellectual impediment. Not withstanding those renowned masterful champions of simple language, it remains that many great works are monumentally wordy, their stylisms lofty and literate.
       
    Please believe me that if I already could glean precisely what was unclear, how so any why, I would have already have revised the text accordingly. I am not an obscurantist! Indeed, of necessity, revision is ongoing. All writing confronts the challenge of understanding the audience. It can be difficult to predict what will constitute essential background and context, or else what detail merely belabors the point. And such is all the more the case in any outreach to any as yet undiscovered audience. In truth, communication often requires deep engagement, unwavering diligence and concerted effort on all sides, all so often undermined by passive hostility and recalcitrance. General complaints and demands may be too lazy and often just don't help. Perhaps such are somehow intended as somewhat unfriendly rejection and passive withdrawal in order to place the recipient in a position where their only recourse towards any progress, will be to work hard, fathom and fully embrace at all more orthodox thinking. And that's just not very nice!  Or else there are some who may be the frustrated desire for simplicity and succinct brevity. But reality is often complicated. Or at any rate, such might be my own understanding of questions and problems that the author, yours truly, struggles with and investigates. I might at least as yet,  just possibly fail to glean easy and graceful simplicity from the often frustrating futile and needlessly complicated Existentially Absurd clusterfuck that is life. Not without oversimplification, distortion and even worse confusion. The cult of amateurism and the fashionable contempt for expertise and meaningful depth of complexity in broadest knowledge notwithstanding, life and reality are often complicated. And this should come as no surprise. “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” - Proverbs 27:17 (KJV) In truth, that much less vexation of intellectual overload accrues from motivated interest in topic and content that matters. Take this too, gentle reader, in good faith as intended, and therefore please do be specific in analysis/deconstruction. Let's buckle down and pick apart my text together, and resolve whatever specific ambiguities arising, even for just a paragraph or two, just see see how that works out. Can that actually be so much to ask? Is it just too much trouble? As compared to what else, and to what end or desired result?
        
    Worse, many people have been taught to regard all who disagree with them, not as dialectical partners in adversarial process into the crucible of truth, but as the dreaded ideological enemy to be bullied relentlessly. crimestop then naturally comes into play, forestalling any delving into opposing reasoning, much less actually unraveling ambiguities or communication errors. Thus are embraced with such hateful fervor, the ever malignant Teachings of the Anti-Socratic and such travesty of discourse accordingly, in all devious and dishonest poor sportsmanship. Moreover, such fanatical Anti-Socratics may even so disapprove when they disagree, that they actually refuse to provide cogent criticism or rebuttal precisely because they do indeed well understand the analytical value of criticism and controversy, indeed for fear thereby of helping anyone they disagree with to sharpen and better convey their thoughts, indeed for fear, in short, of actually advancing Dialectic.
        
    To quote Aristotle: “All things in life are philosophical.” For as Socrates so famously declares: “An unexamined life is not worth the living for a human being.” Hence the rejection of Philosophy is in and of itself, an untenable philosophical position, stinking thinking and way of life. Philosophy then, may be viewed as crucial, a fundamental capability to be nurtured, regained and sustained.  Indeed, many decisions in life benefit from habits of clear thinking and often beg question of Axiology, of values and priorities, and of Epistemology and how anything can be known. Philosophy after all, is founded upon the cultivation of habits of clear thinking beginning with the analysis and articulations of ambiguity and error, all so crucial to clear thinking together, to Dialectical conversational adequacy via ongoing miscommunication repair. To reiterate: Writing is rewriting and never a waste of time. To quote famously from 'Dune' by Frank Herbert: “Fear is the mind killer.” But what can we be so afraid of? To quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” For as the saying goes, no question is too stupid to ask, and no answer too wise to be given. I cannot abide people who instead of speaking up, pointing out ambiguities and posing questions, only dummy up and remain silent whenever they do not understand! Alas, FoolQuest.com is not for people who operate that way. To all such individuals are proffered most sincere apologies for wasting their precious time. Philosophy and habits of clear thinking are impossible for the timid and unquestioning. To anyone so muddled and affected, please feel free to return whenever they  feel more ready .
        
    Alas that many people will often make do in just getting the gist, while other will even pretend to understand when actually they have no clue. Worst are bullies nurturing whatever festering hostility. For if you make them feel secretly foolish, then they will be determined to return the favor! But honest incomprehension, so fundamental to Socratic Wisdom, is a tremendous gift to Dialectic clear thinking together. Because in order ever to delve into anything entirely new and different, it will be necessary to be able freely to question and to discuss that which one does not yet fully or even at all comprehend. All too commonly, traumatic behavioral conditioning as experienced particularly in such toxic and sanctioned formal education, immersive socialization into cultures wherein mistakes and especially honest ignorance (not knowing) are scorned and punished, anything new becomes vaguely threatening awkward and taboo, provoking only anxiety and blank silence.
        
    Granted that there is still no means by which directly to observe or experience another's mental state or consciousness, but only behavior, in Cognitive Behaviorism, enduring so influential and ubiquitous, and unlike Behaviorism hither to, compelled to accept inference of comprehension in behaviors unexplainable by sheer conditioned reflex. And yet in even the most Cognitive Behaviorism, communication is nevertheless one way, operant only towards inducing in the subject behavioral compliance. Clearly this intellectually impoverished and emotionally stunted paradigm of heteronomy to authoritarian coercion so defining of Cognitive Behaviorism, so disturbingly popular and respectable, remains as deplorably inadequate to humanity as it is to science. And yet the salient challenge of Wittgensteinean paralysis remains: Can any message as ever received and understood by any recipient, ever be brought into correspondence with the message as intended by any sender? In short, is improved intersubjectivity even howsoever at all imperfectly achievable? Most often, not without the effort. Otherwise, what will ever accrue, far from at all happily serious conversation, save merely for bypassing, blithe reciprocally unaware talking at cross-purpose, is exchange which is not genuine communication because it lacks sufficient Intersubjectivity and does not carry at all the same meanings or even purpose, intention or point at all between the participants. Is there any antidote to  Wittgensteinean paralysis? Only by embracing doubt and narrowing relevant focus. Only by rejecting impossible perfectionism inherent to demands for pure and complete understanding of meaning in the mid of another. - ultimately requiring nothing less nonsensically surreal and impossible than Zen apprehension of totality of being before anything else may even be considered.

    Improved intersubjectivity is achieved when the comprehension of any specific and particular message by the recipient, is brought into closer correspondence with the intended message content of the sender; a desired result which even by itself, often requires purposeful, interested, engaged and adequately attentive and sustained effort in Dialectical collaboration, indeed fully engaged Dialectical Miscommunication Competence and Conversational Adequacy ongoing in Dialectical collaborative miscommunication repair. If all of that will be too much to ask, even so as to afford merely whatever most preliminary discussion any chance at all, then strategic discourse and feasibility study can only choke, sputter, collapse and dissipate. To reiterate: I simply cannot abide helpless ninnies, so utterly bereft of all Miscommunication Competence, who dummy up when they don't understand, or flagrant and deliberate obscurantist who so willfully refuse to help and offer any clarification, whenever they are simply not understood! As the saying goes, no question is too stupid to ask, and no answer too wise to be given. Never try to fake it. Don't make do just getting the gist of things if even that. Whenever you don't understand, please just speak up! Because, rest assured, I will do as much for you. Always point out and/or correct ambiguities, linguistic or otherwise, as ever arising. Because I certainly will.

    In order substantively and coherently to engage in controversy which is the free exchange of criticism and even to offer relevant suggestions, in short, to help clarify and improve anyone else's message and ideas beyond just grammar and syntax, is necessary first to glean understanding of the content and intent thereof. Hence the struggle for intersubjectivity, as need be. Writing is rewriting and never a waste of time. But impressions without comprehension are unhelpful and frustrating bypassing, often neurotic and ambivalent.

    Similarly, such urgent advice how better to appeal to any broader audience, is senseless without any idea of the target audience. And I do not know who is my intended audience. I do not know for whom I have omitted crucial background and context, and for whom I merely belabor the obvious. I desire, first of all, to find out who might be interested. Only then will it make any sense to discuss how better to engage them. The random casual chance site visitor is unlikely to fit. And if they are generally quite content with whatever they already prefer on the Internet, then they won't need anything new and difficult. Indeed, any content at all will only be of interest or appealing if at all, only pursuant to whatever their own agenda and not that of FoolQuest.com Likely then, such will not be my target audience.

    It's not that I refuse any other entirely unrelated topic of discussion. But that is another matter entirely. As to the discourse at hand, no one need feel rejected from anything they don't actually want in the first place! This is not snobbery, but focus, and a confession of my limitation. You, gentle reader, are my target audience, if you can at all relate, if you find this website engaging, and care to risk returning the favor. The greatest exclusivity is by self-selection in the greatest openness. In the words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

    Impatient short attention span engenders resultant susceptibility to intellectual starvation, emotional isolation and half-baked pipedream, to unrealistic even if traditional and well accepted common sense simple solutions to daunting and complex problems. Indeed, will not the masses ever flock under the banner of promised help to achieve all of our dreams, allay all our fears, confirm our suspicions, and crush all our enemies? Why, even the very admission that of course it's all much more complicated, is only bait to draw us in with hope that, however confusing and irrelevant,  it will all begin making better sense later on. But will it really ever? Or are you just going to get hurt? Indeed, be honest: Even reading this, you must be thinking: Is the wool only being pulled over my eyes yet again, right now? When will we ever learn! 

     
       Know thyself! Don't become a short attention span webstatistic!

     

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    A brief yet heart felt further lambaste leveled against stock dogmatic hack bad writing advice
                                   and all of the needless confusion thereby engendered
     
    What follows serves in order to head off the most alarmingly common annoying first knee-jerk response:  

    Adherents taking positions deemed so straightforward, uncontroverted and uncontrovertibly,  frequently remain so obdurate and blithely unaware, indeed, of widespread controversy. Of opposing positions on the part of others far better informed. Indeed, simple writing style actually figures prominently on lists of bad writing advice. And rightly so. While flaws and aberrations of every kind may be complex as often as fairly simple, complexity and meaningful depth in Literature, in and of themselves, are neither flawed nor aberrant. Intersting complexity and depth, draw the reader in. Wordy, nerdy, verbose, lengthy, purple prose often features in great writing fully deserving of art appreciation. Wordy, nerdy, verbose, lengthy, purple prose paves the belabored path to the most perfect turn of phrase. Because writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time.

    Accept therefore, no substitutes for genuine and fully engaged cogent critique. Any writer who will never exchange fully engaged cogent critique, is no writer at all! Indeed, bah humbug therefore, to pandering oversimplification and ever popular but somewhat misguided maxims and expectations of simple writing style. Among the greatest champions of simple writing, no less than George Orwell himself, also greatly feared oversimplification and the destruction of language as a fulcrum of stupefying oppression. Because indeed, as Martin Heidegger propounds, language speaks the man: Because even human character, personality, is constructed from language. To wit: Would anyone perceive that in ‘Paradise Lost,’ John Milton strives at simplicity? Elegance an clarity certainly, but never simplicity. Point being, that simple writing style is not the only way, be all and end all. Indeed, a dullardly precept entirely sans any truly literate appreciation of meaningful depth and complexity, and without empathy or regard towards authorial intent. Actually in very principle, entirely bereft of all autonomy support. All such remaining no fit substitute to be fobbed off for the effort whatsoever at fully engaged cogent critique. And mere pretense of incomprehension, but actually disapproval, remains most insufferably Anti-Socratic of all! Therefore, oh stubborn acolytes disgorging mindless litany of simple writing style, thanks but no thanks: You are not relevant. And you are not helping!

    Alas that there has been such a decline in literacy and critical thinking, as indeed democracy increasingly comes under siege everywhere. In the words of Ernest Hemingway: “All things truly wicked start from innocence.” And thus, to quote Steve Maraboli: “People tend to be generous when sharing their nonsense, fear, and ignorance.” Indeed, instead of engaging challenging or difficult substantive content, all too many will only retreat into such inane regurgitation of stock dogmatic hack bad writing advice as if greatest purls of wisdom and authority! Because one way or another, that is the lesson that they have been taught and learned full well. For such, to paraphrase C. JoyBell C., are generic people making generic responses and expecting generic answers. Indeed, many might actually seem to believe that because expression is a market commodity like any other, therefore in order to meet demand of whatever prevailing rightthink, the writer is obliged to pander to those unaware incompetent blockheads in every confidently semiliterate ideology of style and substance. Not so! Any serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying precisely whatever manner and kind of feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and relevant. And let the reader own their own emotions. Therefore, once at last prose and composition are rendered lucid, authorial responsibility shall be well discharged and fulfilled. For to quote Alexander Butcher: “If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Offend no one, and please or persuade no one either. Indeed, it does little good striving to placate those already most adamantly opposed.
         
    Indeed, whether for stories or business/project plans or anything else, indeed for probortunity at hand (and more, anon), writing is rewriting, continual research, feasibility study and hard work, but never a waste of time. And the least of due diligence in all manner of endeavor. In the words of Marcus T. Cicero:  “I'm sorry. If I’d more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” Indeed, the mainstay of science and philosophy was once the cutting edge. And the well familiar great concise ideas upon which we all rely, are often, historically, the product of brilliant minds in lifetimes of boiling it all down, volume by volume, page by page. line by line, word by word. This can't be helped. And yes, we should be glad. Therefore, in all due Socratic Wisdom, let us never fear revealing ignorance, either ones own or anyone else's. Because, as per that wisest of aphorisms: we are each and all only ignorant and fallible in different ways. But we may yet strive to buttress one another's weak points, more heads better than one. Indeed, in the words of  C. S. Lewis: “Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction.”

     

     

     

    L E S S   I S   B E S T ,
    M R .  N A B O K O V

     

     

     

     

    Beta reading note

    Simple writing style? Bah, humbug!

     

     

        Emperor Joseph II: And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.  

      

       Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?

     

     

     
     

    Beyond Rightthink

    Frustratingly, requested feedback to FoolQuest.com as yet may more frequently become bogged down in whatever digression into even dubious maxims of writing style and even webdesign, instead of salient discourse upon actual content and agenda at hand. Considerations of English Composition and writing style here on FoolQuest.com, evidently of such burning interest, have been moved in order to be addressed here onto its own page, distinct separately from alas all too often neglected message and content.  Therefore, before plunging together likely at cross-purpose into any changes in the present texts, let us consider how even most generally, there remains such ongoing controversy as to the very nature of truly helpful feedback indeed best to help improve writing clarity. And anyone making assumption of any purportedly obvious rightthink consensus on the matter, simply hasn't been paying attention to ongoing controversy on the very question, ever raging across the Internet.

    There remains an agenda of form and method, alas frequently asserting priority over and suppressing agenda of substance, the entire point, the who what where when and why, not to mention: how. For that must wait: There remain necessary preliminaries before anything else. Bear with me then, gentle reader, in trust and good will. For frustrating experience has revealed that there arises immediately a distinct and significant roadblock that must first be addressed. To wit: Certain Orwellian obstructive and toxic silly truisms are incessantly repeated as though precious purls of wisdom, alas proverbial tar babies in need of the figurative decent burial in order to liberate exchange of more serious thinking and expression. A tar baby is an issue only ensnaring the unwary in struggle all the more, drawn in to contend against it.
        
    One such ubiquitous tar baby truism, so seemingly constructive and innocent, remains incessant exhortation to simple writing, indeed even at the level of a small child! Alas, the emotionally and cognitively stunted great unwashed grow ever more incensed, dare one the affront of respecting their intelligence and expecting much from them! For precisely those simplistic maxims of simple writing style, remain flawed precept as indeed to be found featuring most prominently across the Net on cautionary lists in explicit criticism of stock bad writing advice. And indeed because the complexity of the challenges as at hand in the real world, are scarcely done justice by the present exposition even at its most involved. It's only a matter of Socratic Wisdom to estimate just how little one knows. Because if I actually knew even half about all that I so struggle to ever accomplish here on FoolQuest.com, there would be that much less urgency in reaching out to you out there, gentle readers.
        
    In truth, daunting challenges in the adult world are seldom overcome alone or at the unaware incompetence, emotional, intellectual, or even linguistic level, of a frightened small child. 1 Corinthians 13:11, kjv: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Indeed gentle reader, rising to adult challenge and knowing what to expect, kindly bear in mind that the present electronic document is a branching hypertext relating and associating a varied range of themes and probotunity, connecting to varied and comprehensive resources both locally here on this website and out at large on the World Wide Web. And yet, all still scarcely adequate to the lofty ambition and monumental hubris so characteristic of FoolQuest.com. Many people expect everything to be simple and easy. Many people find difficulty and take great exception to complicated and densely written hypertext, even upon any complicated topic and grappling with a complicated and difficult challenge, even no matter how interesting and important.
       
    Indeed, and there's the rub: anything truly helpful might kindly require of the beta reader, copy or language editor or helpful intelligent individual, linguistic metacognition and specifics in sometimes complex detail orientation. Metacognition, being the primary focus of cognitive philosophy, only means any howsoever at all systematic conscious awareness delving into whatever one's own thought processes and patterns. And herein linguistic metacognition applies to the identification, line by line, of the mechanics of incomprehension, of specific failure in linguistic comprehension of whatever message content received, indeed as ever arising. Indeed, beyond grammar, of syntax, going line by line, or in over all composition back and forth as many times as it may take. And before all else, such remains the particular feedback so indispensable and illuminating for the author of whatever message, indeed yours truly, in order then for ongoing revision towards improved lucidity of prose and coherency of composition, line by line. Fully engaged Active Reading strategies often remains all the more demanding of effort and focus than idle or casual reading. Especially if the text might benefit from needed improvement, and such remains indeed the explicit purpose.

    Alas, in the face of adamant monomania, there can only be such frustrating disconnect, when it becomes impossible to explain or to express, much less to intelligibly discuss or honestly explore, circumstances, reasons or sensibilities guiding writing style and even webdesign and composition of hypertext, in this case so voluminously dense and detailed, as pursuant to content and purpose, coming to grips with daunting and complicated ambition, so often prey to distortions of uncritical willful positivity and drastic oversimplification. Crucial to all knowledge work, Socratic Wisdom as opposed to unaware incompetence, only means gauging the scope of ones own ignorance meaning: limitations of individual knowledge, knowing that one does not know, and wondering how much one does not know.

     
     
    Tar Baby
    The culture of literate critique versus the ideological poverty of oversimplification and fashionably simple writing always dumbing everything down.
    Precisely why, If I hear just one more time about simple writing style, I swear I'm gonna spray chunks!
     
    To quote Stephen Hawking: “The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is not Ignorance, It is the Illusion of Knowledge.” Attention yea misguided staunch advocates of simplistic writing style to the stubborn and obdurate exclusion of anything else: As to the intellectual poverty of smug short attention and much vaunted simple writing: New ideas are often confusing. Only shopworn and well familiar old ideas are certain always to come across effortlessly. The mainstay of science and philosophy was once the cutting edge. The well familiar great concise ideas upon which we all rely, are often, historically, the product of brilliant minds in lifetimes of boiling it all down, volume by volume, page by page, line by line, word by word. Because writing is like photography: Easy to do but difficult to do well. In whatever context or application, writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time. But to always get it right the first time, say very little and dare nothing new. And such remains real world drama, wherein interesting complexity draws us in, no less than in any compelling work of fiction. Further more,  no one will be put off by writing style, even however rich and complex, that resonates personally. Such writing garners praise.

    Tweeting (or X-ing?) truthfully can be challenging, because of that notorious word count limitation. Truth will not endure oversimplification. Truth can be simplified only to whatever degree, before becoming distorted into nonsense or falsehood. But comforting falsehood that need not correspond to objective reality, faces no such limitation. Liars always have the simplest argument, for those lazy thinkers so easily won over thereby. But such impoverished rhetoric raises suspicion among more honest and intelligent folks. Nevertheless, resorting to all manner of the most blatant and complicated nonsense and falsehood, reactionary ideologues tend to dismiss accurate detail and complexity as needless convolution and even resort to conspiracy theories. Then they wax nostalgic: One day when the battle is won, the world will return to blissful simplicity!

        • The Alt-Right Playbook: You Can't Get Snakes from Chicken Eggs

    Do unfashionably heightened language and dense writing style, let alone voluminously comprehensive hypertext, ever actually increase substance and depth of content? In a word: Yes. Unapologetically: They can and do. And there is no heavier burden in richer content, only greater range of choice and interest. All as befitting due respect for the reader's time, attention and intellect.

    And yet, no writer or speaker must ever transfer responsibility for their own expressive shortcomings, to whatever audience so put upon. Yes, all too true: Every effort on the part of the author to write more clearly, spares successive readers needles aggravation. Such trouble spared even perhaps by any somewhat inconsiderate writer, accrues multiplied struggle and needless irritation for any such future readers. It's never easy. Because there can be no shortcuts among serious responsible adults. And all of that is precisely why every writer both maintains every right and bears full responsibility of specifying the nature and kind of feedback deemed most helpful in advancing authorial intent. And such present terms of use should be well obvious agenda of philosophy and habits of clear thinking together, so fundamental and prerequisite to all else, freely and tenaciously questioning whatever is not understood. Because the Socratic Wisdom of questioning whatever is not understood is not any anomaly or bothersome inconvenience, but actually inherent to the human condition, intellect and consciousness, let alone communication and Active Reading at the level of FoolQuest.com And again, hence the present digression.  
     
    The tar baby: Well may one ask: What can possibly be so wrong merely with anything seemingly so innocuous as advocating simple writing style? Plenty, and there's the rub! To begin with, it remains deplorably bad writing advice to exclude all else save for simple writing style, indeed actually semiliterate! But worse, the blithe expectation becomes omni purpose lazy dismissal of any conceivable effort at questioning and working out whatever is not understood, even in order to help revise more clearly. But perhaps most importantly, somehow the misguided maxim has become an ideology. A blithely dogmatic ideology among such Orwellian obstructive and silly demands incessantly pressed as though greatest purls of wisdom and commandments from On High. Alas that such proverbial tar babies remain in need of figurative decent burial in order to liberate exchange of more serious thinking and expression in order to begin debating such important disagreements openly and seriously. A tar baby is an issue only ensnaring the unwary in struggle all the more, drawn in to contend against it. And one such ubiquitous tar baby remains the wide spread and angry perception of entitlement for dumbing everything down and pandering to short attention dullardly people pleasing willful positivity and ineffectual pipedream. And all hence the oppressive and ill considered imperative of simple writing.
       
    Indeed, perhaps however surprisingly to many so dogmatic, cocksure and blithely unaware of controversy long raging across the Net, here shall be argued the poverty of precisely that prevalent rigid view. For precisely those simplistic maxims of simple writing style, remain flawed precept as indeed to be found featuring most prominently across the Net on cautionary lists in explicit criticism of stock bad writing advice. And yet those blockheads all still find themselves so consumed in preoccupation with imperatives of correct webdesign and/or simple writing style, and quite without regard to dangers of distortion from oversimplification, and all so as to preclude or obviate even salient and literate critique or editing remarks, much less actually engagement on topic? What disengaged proselytizing smug self-righteous invalidation, even when naively well intended. In case actually of reading difficulty, indeed as so often reported, there remains a body of less convenient and dismissive better and more pertinent options at remedy in the true discipline of the writing craft for any serious writer. And the key remains not in rejecting effort in very principle, but to the contrary, in full engagement.
     
    Indeed, a specific taxonomy of tar baby awaits lurking in a particularly toxic invalidating mixed message, to ensnare the unwary in dishonest ambiguity of purportedly helping and benevolently correcting while at the same time, simply refusing to engage in authorial purpose, whereof after all, one so stridently disagrees and even actually disapproves. -A deviously invalidating and manipulative emotional bait-and-switch! Rather than such devious conditionality in assistance, as to press the author entirely at cross-purpose to authorial intent, far better instead openly to initiate creation of an entirely new and different project of ones own, and then to politely enlist the other's assistance! Because subversion of initial purpose, is no longer any offer of cooperation with and to another, but actually a solicitation thereof from another, and all towards whatever ones own distinctly different ends. And as ever, honesty remains best policy, to openly debate best alternatives of purpose and strategy. 
     
    To wit: Alas that to begin with, even complaining of incomprehension, even quite without derision, and let alone demanding simple writing in pandering accommodation to fashionably unserious and anti-intellectual short attention and oversimplification, is not even remotely the same agenda as actually requesting clarification let alone proffering assistance therein. The latter after all, remaining the entire legitimate and valuable agenda of actual critique, even however candid and brutally honest. By contrast, all such exasperating "help" only steamrolling forth in whatever its own blockheaded ideology such as above, quite without even polite curiosity as to whatever the author struggles to express or achieve, only manipulatively feigns such Existential Validation of helpful well intention. Meanwhile in subtext of toxic Ulterior Transactions or: headgames of Anti-Socratic knee-jerk invalidation, only exerting compulsion somehow to comply with whatever inane expectations of sophomoric peer pressure, indeed embraced as divine commandment and purls of wisdom. Indeed, the most slippery and irritating cross-purpose of ulterior agenda, actually bordering upon trolling replete with typically pointless and irrelevant soft-flame. And such remains no legitimate mode of discourse, no semblance either of salient writing critique or of Socratic controversy, of free, open and appreciated exchange of criticism, so crucial to all collaboration among equals in creative solution finding, bold ambition, fearless endeavor and Eudemonia all therein.
     
    The entire blithely dogmatic ideology of Anti-Critical braindead short attention and therefore simple writing style, only reflects a certain sense of inadequacy and disappointment that life is neither simple nor easy, but fraught with difficulty and error. No less insidious than outright defeatism, Pollyanna willfully optimistic expectation of everything desirable to become simple and easy or else just a matter of unflagging determination and persistence, just isn't realistic. Nor is just giving up in surprise, discouraged at every hurdle arising. The entire responsible agenda of realistic feasibility study, remains foreseeable estimation of difficulty and complexity, not to mention eustress vs. dystress among myriad other priorities, of whatever proposed undertakings and objectives. Indeed, the most important function of business or project planning remains the Socratic practice of controversy, the free, open and appreciated exchange of criticism, ongoing error detection in order to discover foreseeable obstacles, exposing and even, if need be, actually and actively discouraging flawed ideas, in ongoing process of elimination. But only among those willingly amenable to any such fault finding process together, quintessentially entrepreneurial and artistic serial failures, resolved ever to return to that proverbial drawing board, as many times as it takes, until at last meeting with success. And the clustered mind map drawing board of FoolQuest.com charting the real world Hero's Journey, remains the venerable and sage modern medium known as hypertext:
       
    No one seems even capable to conceive, much less willing duly to consider, that indeed as herein, that there remains need to write more simply, but rather best to organize and refine content:  Most elegantly and coherently to express and then optimally to configure complex interrelationship of associated information and ideas. And yes, this pertains not only to writing style, but to webdesign and hypertext. And it's a matter of Socratic Wisdom. Because, no, I don't make things more complicated. They truly are more complicated, more complicated and daunting than we dare imagine. And all too often very much subject to distortion by cavalier and reckless oversimplification from all manner of grifters, knaves and fools falsely promising that everything can be simple and easy. No shortcuts: Believe me, if I already knew and understood precisely whatever might be unclear, how so and why, I would already have revised accordingly. And that will be a matter of specifics in detail orientation, and not those braindead generalities so harped upon. Pedants make pupils jump through hoops, but helpful feedback fully engages, no matter how candid, brutally honest, harsh and critical, even line by line. Easy to do but difficult to do well, writing is rewriting, hard work and never a waste of time.
     
    Therefore, in entirely straight forward purport to all previous exasperated hyperbole, the following analogy of robotic nonresponse is proffered: Solving algebraic equations, by way of illustrative example, indeed entails simplification achieved by reducing the number of nested parentheses, a confusing and daunting process for the uninitiated. By way of analogy for purpose of illustration, let it be supposed that there might remain, indeed, I'm sure, some especially annoyingly obtuse Inductivist who will only demand, incessantly and repeatedly, the simplification of algebra, determinedly unhelpful and refusing to correct mistakes or offer any helpful suggestions or cogent explanation. One might even come to suspect that such a hypothetical mathematician might finally be unmasked as a fraud, yet another academic charlatan, with no germ of an idea what they are talking about at all: Just one more intellectually lazy know-nothing know-it-all, so readily confounded by any earnest seeker of truth. Because, like Richard P. Feynman, "I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” Indeed, as the saying goes, no question is too stupid to ask, and no answer too wise to be given. However, the vexation at hand is no such hypothetical dubious math help, but actual and celebrated routine writing maxim, dogmatism exactly and as determinedly obtuse and unhelpful. That is your way, it is not mine! Thus spake Zarathustra.
     For beware: The thrust of Robert Frost's famous poem 'The Road not Taken,' is not rugged individualism at all: “It is a poem about the necessity of choosing that somehow, like its author, never makes a choice itself. ” 
     
    As suggested in the above parable, actually even somewhat self-righteously invalidating dismissive short attention exhortation to simple writing style, simply comes not to any point! It's an easy out. Because such short attention generality and invalidatingly dismissive platitude as such adamant exhortations to simple writing style, utterly fail to engage the text, indeed even simply to point out precisely whatever linguistic ambiguities or difficulties in syntax or composition howsoever in need of whatever improvement or clarification, let alone actually addressing indeed perhaps even somewhat complicated content. So, if any of this actually applies to you, Sir or Madame, please: Stop talking at me, and start talking to me! Should the point at hand by now at all seem even somewhat belabored, then hopefully the matter must be clear and lucid, even somewhat obvious.
     
     
     
     
     
    What: More inane exhortations to simple writing style?And shall such comprise the entirety of your response to FoolQuest.com ?
    But what can ever possibly remain so utterly counterproductive from merely advocating simple and clear writing? Answer: Because you're not helping!
    Such short attention generality, pseudo engagement  and dismissive invalidating platitudes, simply do not meet the needs of helpful feedback, utterly failing to engage the text,
    indeed even simply to point out precisely whatever ambiguities in syntax and composition, let alone actually addressing content. Also: Grammarly is Artificial Stupidity!
     
    Writing is rewriting and never a waste of time! And such remains the focus and objective together of actual critique.
    Please believe me: If I already understood precisely whatever might remain unclear, how so and why, I would already have revised accordingly. Hence my exasperation.
    What follows will be full exposition ever as needed, regarding the proffer of cogent critique and editing remarks. Thank you.
     
    Even sheer incomprehension is a beginning and no dire impasse. Critique is dialogue. A writer is no writer, who will never engage in critique.  
     

    Them “Big words” are only “big” because other's curiosity, intellect, or hunger for knowledge is small. - Quant

     

      

     

     

     
     
        Emperor Joseph II: And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.

     
        Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?
     
    Critique however harsh, engages and actually even seeks to abet authorial intent of content. For criticism remains inherently friendly, an expression of abiding respect. Whereas unhelpful short attention demands from rightthink remain blithely insensate to sheer cross-purpose, and a demonstration of contempt. Moreover, attack upon stylism (or nowadays even webdesign) instead of actual content, has always served as cover for ideological disapproval and enmity.
    No one seems even capable to conceive, much less willing duly to consider, that indeed herein I do not need to write more simply, but rather best to organize:  Most elegantly and coherently to express and then optimally to configure complex interrelationship of associated information and ideas. And yes, this pertains not only to writing style, but to webdesign and hypertext. So, try not to chip a nail clicking on the links! And it's all a matter of Socratic Wisdom. Because, no, I don't make things more complicated. They truly are more complicated, more complicated and daunting than dare we imagine. And all too often very much subject to distortion by cavalier and reckless oversimplification from all manner of grifters, knaves and fools falsely promising that everything can be simple and easy. No shortcuts: Believe me, if I already knew and understood precisely whatever might be unclear, how so and why, I would already have revised accordingly. And that will be a matter of specifics in detail orientation, and not those braindead generalities so harped upon. Pedants make pupils jump through hoops, but helpful feedback fully engages, no matter how candid, brutally honest, harsh and critical, even line by line. After all, writing is rewriting and never a waste of time.
       
    Just please, talk to me, not at me! No more stock and interchangeable invalidatingly disengaged rightthink diatribes and litany upon correct webdesign or simple writing style. Gotta head'm off at the pass! Don't wanna go through this yet again! But well may one ask: What can ever possibly remain so terribly wrong, so utterly counterproductive from merely advocating simple and clear writing? Answer: Because you're not helping! The point remaining kindly to bear in mind purpose at hand as herein expounded, before seeking to correct me. That would be far more helpful.
    No shortcuts! To reiterate: Believe me, if I already knew and understood precisely whatever might be unclear, how so and why, I would already have revised accordingly. And that will be a matter of specifics in detail orientation, and not those braindead generalities so harped upon. Pedants make pupils jump through hoops, but helpful feedback fully engages, no matter how candid, brutally honest, harsh and critical, even line by line. After all, writing is rewriting and never a waste of time.
     
    Well may one query: What can be so terrible about advocating simple clear writing and webdesign presentation? Answer: Because you are not helping! Any fellow writer never engaging in the exchange of literate critique, alas is no writer at all. Even the most harsh, direct and honest criticism, including literate critique, remains inherently friendly, an expression of abiding respect, simply by ever coming to the point. And among all manner of considerations in serious writing, before all else subject to scrutiny and revision, perhaps first will be lucidity of prose. Even out from sheer incomprehension, there will always be salient questions one might put to another, in order better to understand anything another ever struggles to express, even cultivation of better appreciation of whatever their approach to that very struggle. Similarly, there may be specific communications errors and ambiguities as might come to light in order to be pointed out and brought to their attention. Even simply in order to proffer cogent rebuttal, it helps first to clearly understand the opposing arguments. Only in such learning curve and process of ongoing error detection and correction, of collaborative Miscommunication Competent Dialectical miscommunication repair, emerges the the attainment of Intersubjectivity.
       
    In cogent critique, the question remains not of writing style options or even of webdesign, all in a vacuum, and not even of grammar but of syntax. Whereas grammar refers to conjugation, functions and relation of elements in any particular sentence, syntax defines organization of linguistic expression meaningfully and coherently. And in cogent critique, not merely in general principle even however edifying, but in specific application to discrete lines of text within, and over all composition of, specific prose treated thereby.
       
    And hence my exasperation at cross-purpose, no illuminating and insightful Dialectic in noble practice of controversy, but merely endless gainsaying. For many who say that they cannot understand, actually just disapprove, and so vehemently, that however dedicated and devoted, ever do they remain so loath actually to criticize, because indeed they do fear thereby actually to make themselves too helpful. Yes, deep down, some do indeed well understand the value of criticism that they so trenchantly and deviously withhold! And such conduct, even however oppressively sincere, in stubborn and persistent practice yet borders upon pernicious soft-flame.
        
    Moreover, in truth, web standards will always be hotly debated, and simple writing style actually figures prominently on lists of bad writing advice. And rightly so. And yet these stirred up hornet's nests of know nothing know-it-all cretin dogmatists, so ideologically pure, remain ever adamantly certain and cocksure that no one would ever disagree with them or ever purposefully express themselves differently than they! But the shoe is on the other foot. Those blockheads indeed so patently oblivious to all aforesaid pertinent controversy raging across the Net, are truly the ones in dire need to be corrected instead to embrace critical thinking and learn the venerable process of literate critique! A writer so closed off and never engaging in any exchange of critique, is no writer at all! That is your way, it is not mine. Thus spake Zarathustra!  For beware: The thrust of Robert Frost's famous poem 'The Road not Taken,' is not rugged individualism at all: “It is a poem about the necessity of choosing that somehow, like its author, never makes a choice itself. ” 
    Should ever one disapprove because one misunderstands, then the better one comes to understand, then perhaps thereby the less one might eventually disapprove. But if one utterly fails to comprehend but already strongly disapproves, then ever the better one come to understands, then likely only the more harshly shall one disapprove! Therefore gentle reader, are we already working at cross-purposes?
       
    Smug disengaged exhortations to simple writing style, let alone any blithe recommendation of Grammarly! remains insultingly lazy and dismissive, nothing profound. Only unfriendly and evasive soft-flame upon an ideological enemy, in disapproval and pontification upon a craven imperative to dumb everything down to pabulum. Better far, yes speaking of being simple and direct, undemanding and honest disinterest, without undue Moralism rubbing it in.
    First of all, what remain the true responsibilities of any informative or argumentative writer? Answer: First of all, to strive at writing clearly. After that, leave the reader not only to form their own opinions, but even to experience their own emotional responses and then own them and acknowledge responsibly. let the reader have their own feelings! Persuasion may be the objective, but never obligation, neither for author nor audience. In any case, simply for detecting and correcting any whatever deficiency in prose, towards writing more clearly, there is nothing so outlandish in that a writer may request according to whatever their own clear understanding of whatever specific nature of actually helpful feedback to request from beta reading language and copy editing remarks.
      
    And there's the rub! Alas, in asking for response to my work, I often only encounter the wrong audience, disapproving and not actually interested, and thereby stir up a hornets nest of adamantly committed sheer irrelevance. Meaningful critique even however harsh and honest, actually working with content, then at least cogent editing notes to specific actual content, is all to be welcomed. But the stubborn invalidation expressed in demands for impossible sweeping changes, entirely without consciousness and concern or even reference to message of content, and without regard to authorial intent, all just leave me cold. These cretin dogmatists need to learn and embrace the venerable process of literate critique. That would help enable them to relate to others even in the course of heated disagreement. And I can accept nothing less. It remains that I can neither relate, engage nor frame any pertinent response in good faith sensemaking whatsoever, indeed save as author and indeed from authorial intent of content. That will be far less aggravating and much more fun!
    And believe you me, if only I already knew precisely and specifically whatever remains unclear, point by point, how so and why, I would already have revised accordingly. Indeed, revision is ever ongoing. In best service to capability, anyone should be permitted, indeed actually respected and encouraged, to reach out and freely specify whatever kind of help and advice they themselves might ever deem as beneficial and pertinent. Because original thinking remains nonstandard, and calls for individual attention, not stock generalities and platitude of short attention and invalidation.
        
    Yes, all to true: Every effort on the part of the author to write more clearly, spares successive readers needles aggravation. Indeed, such remains the responsibility of the writer striving at writing clearly. But do not burden the writer with expectations of reception on the part of hypothetical average readers, least of all as regarding mere stylism. Who says that this mythical average reader is the intended audience. let alone whatever be all and end all exalted bench mark of all human thought? let the reader have their own individyal feelings! That little may even open the way for discussion hitherto closed under a bitter subtext of derisive incomprehension. Any meaningful prose must often search or its receptive audience. An intended audience of serious and receptive readers, however scarce, will never be so frivolous and picayune as that wishy-washy hypothetical average reader, a construct often doing some injustice to ordinary people.
         
    And so: Is simple writing style merely a means to an end after all, or actually an end in and of itself, a proverbial sacred cow beyond all admissible reproach or substitution? Because if simple writing style remains only a perfectly sensible means to improve writing, then just perhaps, simple writing style is only one possible strategy among any number of entirely viable strategies and alternative for quality and clarity in writing, of which, barring sheer dogmatism, the various merits each whereof, might be compared under varying circumstances, in order best to choose among them, case by case. Indeed, just to the contrary, what about actually enriching  the exploration and emphasis of prose, even with the most needles ornament and stylistic flourish, indeed as have the educated citizens and Literary masters in days of yore? Indeed, consider the previous sentence: It runs a little long, yet remaining well balanced. In the English language, we never use five words when eight will do! Of course, the point remaining that neither stylistic opposite negates the need for feedback to the actual text, to content, rather than dogged fixation upon blockheaded empty generalities.
         
    Too serious and yet not serious at all, it is only such unmitigated proselytizing dogmatism and one dimensional thinking, that ruins any sensible striving for simple writing style, if that's what you're into. Alas that mass literacy has given way to a decline in functioning literacy. It remains better to resist and continue cultivating attitudes of literacy, than to to surrender and accommodate. Ultimately, people who demand only the most simplistic answers to the most complicated problems in life, will never be well served.
       
    While all manner of innovative standardization has consistently fostered great advance in civilization, the inevitable standardization of thought and expression in particular, ever threatens the downfall of civil society. Indeed, all regurgitation of such braindead unhelpful short attention platitude and invalidating generality as such misguidedly dogmatic exhortation to simple writing, entirely fail to locate, much less critique, specific ambiguities or errors. -Let alone even showing the simple respect of actually addressing content... All that accrues from such platitudinous generality amounts to a pointless guessing game, as to whatever specifically might actually remain unclearly written, how so and why. And I so dislike such annoying guessing games. I tend to guess wrong. Dismissive invalidating generalities and platitudes, pseudoengagement of that nature, as per quintessential example, the misguidedly dogmatic short attention exhortation to simple writing, simply constitute no actual effort whatsoever, at focused critique, let alone helpful comment or cogent rebuttal at all to any point. And so, the exchange of substantive critique, error detection and correction, remains among my own chosen and vastly preferred writing values. Any questions?
          
    Helping while keeping distance can be toxic rather than helpful. Writing is complicated. Serious writing is not for short attention and passive invalidation. Nor is fully engaged Active Reading. Such unhelpful rightthink and platitudinous sweeping generalities of invalidation and short attention, as fanatical exhortation to simple writing style, only fail even to critique or correct specific textual ambiguities or errors, much to less address content or to render practical assistance, let alone to to provide the more specific advice as herein requested.

    In the words not as misattributed to Alexander Butcher himself quoting, but of George Orwell according to Quote Investigator: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people things they do not want to hear.” Attacking writing style, composition and even somehow thereby character Ad Hominem, while simply ignoring content or evading pointed criticism, used to be the favored stock diversionary soft-flame pseudoengagement tactic in order to sidestep content of which, actually, the reviewer somehow disapproves. Then eventually howsoever faulty webdesign supplanted politically objectionable writing style and composition as the favored red herring. It's always something!

    By contrast, all too scarce genuine interest and respect will come as so refreshing. Pardon then my frustration, ever mounting to the point of exasperation. Much as I hate to bury the lead, it may be urgently important to address this issue first: And thank you. gentle reader. For in those immortal words of Simone Weil: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity." Because we live in an attention economy, often indeed so distant, frugal and miserable. A culture online, of short attention and minimal transitory engagement. And indignant stock responses are undeniably so highly economical. But who are we all saving ourselves for? Pay attention to me, damn it! Be interested, be interesting. Stay interested. And we may yet reap the return, together, from sound emotional and intellectual investment. Take a chance on me and on one another, gentle readers. Gentle reader, search your soul: Can you be trustworthy and responsible? To quote Frederick Law Olmsted: "After all is said and done, much is said and little is done." But why is such so often the case? Might there be discovered any correlation between the quality of discourse, mentality, relevance and good faith, and viability of ensuing action ever taken? That is the question!

    Alas, even barring the most unseemly and blatant personal hostility, there remains often a certain blithe pseudoengagement and invalidation buttressed by a set of stock answers taken by so many as the very font of wisdom. And the admonition to simple writing, often out of context, remains among the foremost and most celebrated. Alas, in the first place, that complaining of general incomprehension, is not the same as actually requesting specific clarification. Because only the latter even actually expresses any open interest. While the former likely remains merely entrapment into the closed stone-deaf powerplay toxic Ulterior Transactions or: headgames of sly invalidation .

    To quote Anton Chekhov: “... only he is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.”  Fearless of seeming howsoever pretentious, intelligent people who make the effort of thinking, routinely discuss what is not understood, precisely because it is not yet understood. After all, how else do anyone  learn? Alas that for many, precisely that little yet remains simply unthinkable. But how much will be lost in translation, dumbing everything down for them?
    Indeed, even at the risk of malign equivalence, among the greatest champions of unadorned simple language, George Orwell, also foresaw rampant simplification as instituted via conlang, constructed language, to the point of frustrating all dissident thought, let alone free expression. Orwell's fictional Newspeak is a conlang, a constructed language, of planned phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, much like Basic English in reality, of which Orwell remained all too keenly aware.

    All therefore beware simplistic short attention imperatives in exhortation of insipid simplistic writing. Indeed, what if it remains actually the content that will be so challenging or complicated? For the flat out denial of all complexity as ever arising, is neither elegant nor concise. And the true path to excellence in clear writing with both substance and style, remains not in the dismissive regurgitation of silly rules, but in the attentive exchange of fully engaged critique. Solitary serious writers actually break isolation, often only via the exchange of critique. And  ever the struggle of attentive exchange of fully engaged critique remains truly laudable motive for Socratic Dialectic in penetration of authorial intent and attainment of Intersubjectivity, achieved when the comprehension of a message by the recipient, comes into closer correspondence with the intended message content of the sender. Only thus does intelligent response and full attention emerge into possibility. Again: Writing is rewriting and never a waste of time. And the least of due diligence. To quote Sholem Asch: "Writing comes more easily if you have something to say." But to always get it right the first time, say very little and nothing new.

    Accept no substitutes! As Eve Tushnet expounds in ‘Eros and Education,’ Eros, so enticing and so threatening, is nothing more or less than profound reciprocal engagement traversing into alien difference. For close human relationship is Eros which is transport in liberating union with alien difference also called: psychological visibility that penetrates psychological asymmetry. Because curiosity, the leading edge of will, remains the agent of compassion. Curiosity even embraces variation and complexity, otherwise resented and rejected. Without curiosity, there can be no concern for others or even regarding external reality to begin with. Indeed, not even compassion for oneself. Incomprehension and/or complexity must inspire either Eros, engaging curiosity and interest, or else crimestop aversion and boredom. Because incomprehension is one thing, and disinterest is quite another. Either engage or don't! And question whatever is not understood. There is no substitute for full engagement, certainly not silly maxims about simple writing. Such puerile dodges as blithe admonition to simple writing, as a pretext for disinterest and inattention, comes as a slap in the face under ostensibly plausible denial. Of course there is no obligation to make any better effort, and therefore no need of excuses. It's all of the needless excuses that remain such galling waste of time in such aggravation of needless invalidating short attention pseudoengagement. No one is always interested, all of the time, in everything or everyone. For example, I am just not interested in being preached to about simple writing. Not unless specific ambiguities and errors will be located and addressed. Therefore, in case of simple disinterest, first of all just own it! But then beware crimestop.

    Why all them big four dollar words you been a'spoutin' all the time? How pretentious! Tisk, tisk. Look: If anything matters to begin with, but clicking a hyperlink provided, let alone actually using a search engine to look up unfamiliar terminology and more, is all simply too much trouble, then any further effort at anything more, will surely remain quite out of the question. In that case, do pray tell: Exactly what alternatives without much greater effort than any as aforesaid, will be deemed preferable, and to precisely what likely and hoped for result? Is the problem incomprehension or whatever sense of futility, just apathy, anxiety and resentment? Precious hope must be invested with care. If there is a better offer, then take it.

    FoolQuest.com is an appeal to anyone interested. But FoolQuest.com cannot be all things to all people. Indeed, precisely what does anyone uninterested expect from that which they are simply not interested in? Often, especially if they have actually been consulted after all, they perceive a problem to be corrected, and then expect somehow to be catered to. And even not just at such juncture arising, but in the embrace of a cause, by everyone everywhere, in all of writing, whatsoever, indeed as per case in point, in a world transformed, a world of simple clarity. - the eradication of all intellectual challenge, at least for laypeople. But how and when are any such expectations ever reasonable or actually informing of helpful critique in the here and now?

    Should ever one disapprove because one misunderstands, then the better one comes to understand, then perhaps thereby the less one might eventually disapprove. But if one utterly fails to comprehend but already strongly disapproves, then ever the better one come to understands, then likely only the more harshly shall one disapprove! Therefore gentle reader, are we already working at cross-purposes?

    Stranger danger: Trust remains essential, yet trust is so frequently abused and betrayed. Worse, for many, communications difficulty routinely inspires such caginess and mistrust. New vocabulary, hitherto unknown, must be some sly and deadly insult! After all, we all know how to say "fuck you" in Yiddish: "Trust me, trust me!" And levity notwithstanding, when the level of trust remains so low and utterly paranoid, one reflexively limits ones risk, involvement and candor. In general, arbitrary rules are not meaningful reasons. And in particular, maxims of simple writing style, whatever their own merits in broadest principle, may be wielded as a rebuff in conditionality, a snare into aggravating routine disengagement and thereby invalidation via sheer irrelevance, deriving Existential Validation in whatever trivializing ideology. Among all Ulterior Transactions or: headgames of sly invalidation, tactics stubborn digression off topic may fall under the category of stone-deaf powerplay. To quote George Orwell yet again: “A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing,” The integral memeplex, the sly and plausibly deniable implication by behavior remaining, not merely as to the right to disagree or even to disapprove, but that until the speaker conforms, such speakers must be denied any attention. And yes, that can indeed become outright Orwellian.
     

     

     
     
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