Hey guys, it's Non here.
Coffee in hand. A city is a physical place where strangers try to live together without killing each other. That is a real definition, not a joke, and it costs nothing to write. This episode is a handful of sentences exactly like it.
You are reading a message in the waiting room. You are looking at the screen. You are deciding whether to send it. This is the real work of life.
We spend so much time getting the words right. We think that if we just have the perfect definition, the perfect explanation, the argument will finally stop. We try to solve the problem with words. We think the problem is a lack of understanding.
Fair enough. It is comforting to think we just need a dictionary. We think if we learn the right terms, we will finally know how to be. We think that if we define the situation, the problem disappears.
But think about the queue. You are waiting in line. The person in front of you does not have a name. They do not have a biography.
They are just a body in a beige coat. You do not need a dictionary to understand that. You do not need to define them to know that you are annoyed. The annoyance is just there.
It is a feeling. It is a problem. It costs nothing to write down that the person is annoying. It costs nothing to write down that you want to leave.
But does writing it down make the queue move? No. You might be right. You might think that if we just had the right word for the queue, if we could classify the annoyance, if we could apply a rule, the pain would go away.
But this episode is not about finding the perfect word. It is about looking at the words we already have and seeing if they are doing the work. It is about seeing if the words are just hiding the problem, or if they are actually helping us move. We are going to chew on the words.
We are going to look at the definitions. And see if they are cheaper than solving the problem.
I am tired of words that do nothing but make me feel smart for a second. I am sitting at a desk, and I am looking at a list of definitions. It is a Nonism Dictionary. It is a handful of sentences, written flat and without mercy.
I see a definition for "Anxiety." It says: "What you cannot avoid when coming to terms with yourself." That is a sentence. That is a label.
It does not help me sleep at night. It does not fix the knot in my stomach. It just gives the knot a name. I look at the word "Belief."
It says: "An unfortunate result of an often irrational thought process commonly known as a 'leap of faith.'" That is a sentence. It does not make me believe differently. It does not make me stop believing. It just calls my life a mistake.
I look at the word "City." That is a sentence. It is a joke, but it is a real one. It costs nothing to look at a map and write that down.
It is the cheapest definition in the world. It is the cheapest solution to the problem of the city. This brings us to Sartre. Jean-Paul Sartre sat in a café in Paris and watched a waiter who was doing his job too perfectly, and it bothered him for the rest of his life.
He saw the waiter moving fast, bending his elbows, treating the coffee like it was a play. He did not like it. He did not like that the waiter was acting like an actor in a role. He did not like the pose.
This bothered him so much that he invented a whole philosophy to explain why. He called it "Being-for-others." It is a fancy way of saying that we are always watching ourselves through the eyes of other people, and sometimes we get stuck in the role we are supposed to play. We become the waiter.
We become the student. We become the polite guest. We become a thing defined by the expectations of the room. Sartre was worried that we would lose our freedom.
He was worried that if we fix our definitions of ourselves, we would turn into statues. He was worried about the waiter. I am worried about the queue. I am worried about the waiter because I am one, too.
I am an architect. I stand in front of a client and I talk about spaces. I talk about flow. I talk about "vision."
I am doing the job too perfectly. I am acting the part. I am bending my elbows and moving fast. I am worried that if I do this for too long, I will forget who I am outside of the café.
I will forget that I am just a guy who likes bad horror movies and needs a haircut. I will forget that I am not a "visionary." I will forget that I am not a "professional." I will become the role.
I will become the definition. And then the role will be all I am. That is what Sartre was afraid of. He was afraid that the definition of us would be the prison of us.
He was afraid that if we define the waiter, the waiter disappears, and we are left with just the waiter. We are left with just the pose.
Critical Thinking: Often an oxymoron since the only acceptable form of thinking is that of critical (also see Thinking). Culture: A practice of everyday life that has been repeated so much by a community that it has become both a sensible norm by which the members of such community would like to live their life and sensuality of which those same members would like to make sense of their life -- regardless of whether or not they know the origins (often multiple) of such practice.
Knowledge: A body of ideas that personally matter to you. If it doesn't matter to you that way, it's just data. Law: A form of distant control mechanism that has the aura of actuality in preventing human beings from directly killing each other but does not necessarily prevent them from doing so indirectly. I am looking at the review on my desk.
It is three lines long. It says the wall is "too brutalist." It says it is "cold." It is a judgment, a label, a verdict.
I could argue with it. I could write a long email explaining the structural logic, the history of concrete, the specific play of light. I could defend my work. I could try to prove that I know the "right" definition of brutalism.
I could spend an hour trying to win the argument. It is exhausting to do the work of building and then watch people judge the result. But if I write that email, I am accepting the premise. I am accepting that the word "brutalist" is the thing that matters.
I am accepting that the wall is cold because of the word, not because of the weather outside. I am looking at the review. I am looking at the three lines. I am thinking about the cost of the word.
The review is just data. It is a noise in the room. It does not change the wall. The wall is still there.
It is still holding up the roof. The structural engineer did not check the review. The sunlight does not care about the review. The people who live in the building will not read the review.
They will just sit in the room. They will feel the temperature. They will see the light. The word "cold" is just a sound.
It is not a measurement. It is not a fact. So I do not write the email. I do not argue.
I do not try to fix the definition. I look at the wall and I see what it is. It is a thing. It is a block.
It is a boundary. It is a surface. It is not a feeling. It is not an attitude.
I look at the review and I see what it is. It is a problem I cannot solve. It is a noise I cannot turn down. It is just a thing that exists next to the wall.
I have a job to do. I have to build the next wall. I have to make the next decision. I have to keep the standard of my work when nobody is watching.
I have to keep the line straight when the tape measure is gone. I have to do the work because the work needs to be done. The word "cold" is just a label. It does not change the physics of the room.
It does not change the fact that I am an architect. It does not change the fact that I am tired. It does not change the fact that I am here.
I am looking at the list again. "Liberalism: An ideology building on the false belief that human beings can be good to one another if each of them is driven solely by his or her own (broadly and vaguely defined) self-interests." It is a sentence about how we try to make a world that works only by assuming everyone is selfish. It is a sentence about why we are so surprised when people are mean to each other.
And then it says: "Life: A biological process that is a reverse of hiccup that, spoiler alert, always end in death and for which there is no cure." That is a sentence, too. It is a sentence about the timer. It is a sentence about the fact that we are all waiting for the stop signal.
I am looking at the two sentences next to each other. One is about how we try to fix the world with money and rules. The other is about how we cannot fix the body. One is about the social contract.
The other is about the physical reality. One is about what we want the world to be. The other is about what the world actually is. I am looking at them and I am wondering if we are trying to use a hammer to fix a leak in a boat that is already sinking.
I am wondering if we are trying to use a definition to make the dying stop. I am wondering if the word "Liberalism" is just a way to pretend we have control over the things we cannot control. I am wondering if the word "Life" is just a way to pretend we have time. I am wondering if we are just arguing about the shape of the room while the fire is happening.
I am wondering if the definition is the problem. I am wondering if the definition is the excuse. I am wondering if the definition is the cage.