every so often someone on Twitter casually drops some personal context – usually in someone else’s mentions – that totally explains their out-there take on something else, but it would seem so fucked up for me to point it out when everyone’s basically/mostly moved on
Conversation
when I'm being interviewed I try to always give a decent chunk of this context (tho it can feel self indulgent)
my ideas, values & actions are the effects of previous causes
we all have different causes so it seems crucial to share those first to establish shared baseline
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maybe one of those things I picked up from living adjacent to Indigenous people: they always put a lot of time into exchanging & calibrating context, then the content of the meeting flows effortlessly, like an afterthought
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when I meet someone who is coming to me for advice I want them to spend the first 20 min answering "where have you been?" and "who are your people?" and 2 min explaining the situation they want advice on
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I was once part of an art project where many people travelled to work in one place for a month. the was bicultural (Maori & settlers) so we started by seeking the blessing of the local people. before we began, old people from each side came together to share stories...
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in the exchange of genealogy & lore they found a connection: 80 years ago, the locals were doing a creative project & the ancestors of our travelling group had offered them material aid
the old people showed us the evidence of this exchange in the walls of the meeting house...
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the point of this connection wasn't so much "you did us a favour once so now we owe you one" but, "we're meeting here already on good terms" and "let's intentionally call to mind the kind of causes that may precipitate the kind of effects we want to see here"
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I mean that the selection of causes is a creative magical act and we have extraordinary freedom to paint with it, within bounds
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