this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2024
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My daily rant as an old person.
Using the words Processing and Unpacking when speaking or writing of thoughts.
I truly dislike these words because it turns people into machines, into objects. It's how a psychopath wants you to think about yourself and events. They want to define how you think and feel.
People reflect on events and feel emotions, they don't process. When you use the wrong word/idea you distance yourself from who you are.
People think about their lives and events, they may or may not think in an analytical way, they don't unpack. I unpack my groceries and when I do I'm not analysing what they are, how and why I bought them, the origin of the groceries, I'm not trying to make a narrative that makes sense, I'm not relating my groceries to other groceries. I'm just picking them up and putting them away.
When unpacking I usually circle back, touch base and re-process, re-pack then if the synergistic ducks are in a row it'll be all blue skies.
Do you navigate all your problems like that?
The only time I use process is when someone tells me some really big news and immediately wants an answer. I'll reply with "um give me some time to process that".
Agreed! So much more is involved in reflection than just "unpack/process". I'm not "putting away" my thoughts, nor am I "processing" them like a warehouse. Sure, one can make a metaphor for how the brain stores memories (short and long-term, and how that can be disrupted, the effects of such disruption, etc) to how a warehouse stores stock or moves it. But as with all metaphors, they are lacking in a fundamental way: they discount the humanness of thinking and memories. The process of remembering and mindfulness is less a straight line of "A follows B follows C follows D...", and more akin to "A reminds me of F, and I feel X about that, but maybe I should think about D and how it relates to L and I can use that if I encounter G...".
Thinking of us as machines, well, dehumanises us lol.
I might do a little rummaging around to find out when that terminology first arose and who is responsible and why.
I admit manipulation of language and beliefs bother me.
I unfortunately use these kinds of words as a result of working at a community organisation that was run by an interlinking system of committees. There used to be a lot of meetings, and people padded out their conshy sounding contributions with the sort of language that adds absolutely no meaning. Honestly the joint was a bit like a cult and it took me a long time to deprogram myself.
@Seagoon_ @briongloid
> Using the words Processing and
> Unpacking when speaking or
> writing of thoughts
>
> I truly dislike these words
> because it turns people into
> machines
I feel the same. Same thing also with the word "content". If I write something, like an article or whatever, I did not "produce" anything, and certainly not "content". Even this little mastodon comment here, silly as it may be, is not "content". It's something I've written where I (a human!) expressed some thoughts.
@Seagoon_ it's possible that you're unaware that "unpack" came into this kind of discourse as a term from the 1988 essay "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," which is about deconstructing white privilege
https://admin.artsci.washington.edu/sites/adming/files/unpacking-invisible-knapsack.pdf