I find some of the nuance of complex issues is water down by the limits of a common language.  It’s part of the reason every specialty generates it’s own jargon, sometime taking words that are already packed with meaning and giving them a very specific meaning in that professional jargon.  Yes I’m looking at you, statistics.

Because I’ve accidentally become fluent in several jargon’s, I’ve had the pleasure of sitting in meetings, watch the group come to agreement, and knowing that because each group had it’s own specific meaning attached to a word, they weren’t even on the same page. “Method” to a analytical chemist is not “Method” to a computer programmer. Order, confidence, power, and a host of others are not the same to a statistician as they are to the rest of the worlds population.

At least classical scientists take latin or greek words out of context to describe certain things, so you know when they are using dead languages that they mean some jargony thing. It’s a useful flag, so the unenlightened know to ask what they’re talking about.

Instead of starting a futile battle against this tendency for language to break into separate camps, I’ve decided to pile on.  I  tend to use a capital letter on a word, like Hassle or Fulfillment to indicate I have a more specific meaning in mind.  That meaning is defined in previous posts, but where a particular post may draw the attention of some people at that particular point in time, there are a lot of tl:dr posts for a lot of people.  And that doesn’t include any theoretical new readers that may come to visit.

So below I have placed, and will undoubtedly place more in time, the words that I have focused to a particular idea in that capitalized context. That I wrote 5 paragraphs to introduce a glossary, shows why it’s needed!

So:

• Focus – the amount of mental energy a person has.
• Interests – the things a person wants to spend time thinking about/doing.  Interests, in pretty much all cases, encompass a thought space larger than Focus can keep up with.
• Hassle – anything that isn’t a interest that consumes Focus.
• Agency – the ability of an individual to shape an event
• Information – the amount of context an individual has around an event.
• Frustration – an event that the participant has limited Information about, or Agency over.  Usually a negative event, but not always.
• Fulfillment – the deep seated, comfortable sense that life is worth it.
• Happiness – the ‘in the moment’ joy of an event or situation.
• Encouragement – positive upbeat efforts to align motivation to a individuals Interests.
• Threat – Negative, stressing bad outcomes and using fear to motivate a individual – coercion.
• SIT – self image thing – The core parts of an individuals self image, the attribute a person defines themselves by.
• Legend – what people  who don’t know you, know about you.
• Knowledge – Facts you know; the boiling point of water; your child’s favorite toy; knowing that asking when your wife to get you a beer, it shouldn’t ever involve the word “wench”.
• Understanding – the way facts fit together.  The processes that link systems and behaviours. Understanding the characteristics of boiling water that make it painful to stick your hand in, without trial and error.  Seeing the patriarchal and class based origins of the word wench and seeing why it is unlikely to be received well, without trial and error.  Being able to draw conclusions out of data, without needing empirical evidence of that conclusions existence. I know a car is heavy and moving fast, so I know it would hurt to step in front of it.  I don’t need to prove it. Always gathering information empirically…can hurt.
• Reserve – the total sum of knowledge/understanding encompassed in the Human Species. Everything we learned from dead people – so overwhelmingly things we’ve inherited by being born. We do not all have access to the entire reserve, either because the lived life restrains access or because nobody head is big enough to collect all of it, without the Singularity. Probably not with the Singularity either. Kurzweil is banging up against kinetics, and bandwidth problems. Understanding is a flow, not a stock…Knowledge is mostly stock, but additions are flows.

The math heavy posts contain their internal variable definitions that mostly align with the above.  I’ll alphabetize this list if it becomes to unwieldy as it is.  I like this presentation as definitions are grouped like with like.