This is as good a garden variety definition of a "Big Being" as I have ever read:"a very wise person who had their sh..t together, and was able to routinely demonstrate competence. Also, they were people of personal charm and ethics presence who other people would turn to as opinion leaders and whom other people would follow." Lakey wrote that!
Thanks for the kudos!
O.K. I get it that it is better not to use Big Being as a lable, because of the way that Corporate Scientology utilizes it to enforce a "power over, power down" system. (Those at the top of the system have all the power in the system, and those at the bottom have very little or none.) We are all "Big" in the sense that we are all capable of achieving much more than we limit ourselves by thinking we can at any given moment, and that we are all Spiritual Beings, etc.
I don't care a hoot how C of S uses the word, but I agree with your other points.
However, for the purposes of our discussion here, I think it is perfectly all right to bandy about the term, which is what we have been doing. Not judging or listing as in who is and who's not a Big Being, etc. We're ALL Big, some of us just know it moreso than others.
Agreed
Yes, as a writer, in general, it is good to be succinct. Not terse. Not verbose.
I'll freely confess, I personally tend to err on the abundance side...(how's that for re-framing a negative into a positive?
)
I absolutely am in love with my own words.
I love Alanzo's writing, but I feel that he too often errs on the thin and skimpy side. I know why he does this, he likes a terse style like some of the greats, and it's because of his marketing training and experience. Sometimes he thinks like a copywriter writing ad copy, "less is more", and tantelize them, but don't totally satisfy them, "always leave your audience wanting more" is axiomatic in that business. So Alanzo tends to scrimp on his words sometimes, for my tastes (I do want more-see it works!
).
As a writer, I'm more into preparing a meal of words that is like a banquet, something for everybody, more than enough to eat, and leave folks coming away feeling comfortable and satisfied. So I tend to use too many words. Put Alanzo and I in a room together and let us fight it out, and we probably make a darn near ideal writing team because of this.
I'm like you, tend to be too verbose! Some times its necessary, usually its not.
For Dart- one of the axioms in my dojo was: "Always leave your partner with a positive feeling", so no matter how much you had wrecked them in practice
, (hopefully not much), you had to use healing arts, good comm, respect (after wiping the floor with them), affinity flows, etc, to put them back into good shape before either of you left the mat. (And if you had hurt them, you had to buy them a meal, and if you had injured them, you were tossed off the mat, suspended from training until you got right with the world and could control your actions). That same concept tends to spill over into my writing style too. It's too easy to hurt people and cause MU's by being short and abrupt. [For the rest of you, Dart and I have something in common, we both trained in Aikido (the most Spiritual Japanese martial art form that's a lot like dancing) that followed the practices and teaching of one particular Sensei who included Ki (universal energy) training.]
I don't quite get the gist of this part
Actually, I think my training and experience in teaching has doomed me here, because you have to keep re-stating things in different ways until your students fully understand it, and not everybody thinks alike, or has the same vocabulary. (I very probably talk too much in normal conversation, too...
Lakey, chime in here with what you perceive about this, I would be glad to hear if you think I do, based on our conversations.)
I think your talk to listening ratio is fine and is well balanced. I tend to talk too much more than you do. You do not seem overly repetitive to me.
How many words we use should not become a rule or standard here, however, for the following reasons: Most of the people on this board have little formal training in writing skills. (I know we have some
very good writers here.) For some, posting on the board is the most writing that they have done in years. Also, we have the broadest possible range of educational levels here, in addition to people's aquired communication abilities, and differing native languages.
True, no rules or standards were being set. My comments on commnications and writing skills were of academic interest only, not to be applied as rules at all. Hubbard was a good writer and look how far it helped him to get. We have writers posting here as good as he was in my opinion.
When one is sharing a personal anecdote, it takes as many words as it takes to tell the story well, so such rules or arbitraries should not apply to many of the posters here. Also, if someone is exploring their pain, confusion or anger over an event, or trying to fully understand "WTF happened to them", which seems to be a recurrent theme on this board, and is fully in alignment with it's purpose, the poster needs to be allowed much latitude and leeway in using writing as an ongoing healing practice, as a discovery tool, and ought not to be evaluated or invalidated on the relative length or shortness of their posts.
I agree except when giving illustrations and examples, one or two good short examples should suffice. When something starts going on and on without structure or control, that type of thing needs to be cut down and rephrased. Long itsa's which sound like reactive ramblings should be discouraged.
Sometimes posters here post very fast and short posts because they are following dozens of threads at once, or are posting on the fly while doing several other things at once (like working). Our cadre is mostly made up of deep thinkers who like to really look at a topic and chew it over, as well as being very pro-social.
Ours is much more what I was looking for when I reformatted this thread. We do not need the post on the fly crowd. I hope they post elsewhere as they are now doing.
In other words, there is no "doing it right" here. (God help us if there ever is!)
Anyone can do what they want as long as it complies with the rules established by the execs of ESMB.
Lakey, not to introvert you in any way, I just want to gently remind you that as the thread holder (think Mission holder)
, as the person who started and informally moderates this thread somewhat, your words on how we post, the relative length of posts and number of words used impinges more than if you were just anybody saying this. I'm confused as to what you want to accomplish by bringing this topic up here. I can't tell if you are simply continuing a private phone conversation with Blue on the thread here, or are just mulling this over, having seen and experienced the effects of too little words vs. too many words, or if you are really trying to lay down some guidelines or limitations on posting here on your thread? You purpose is not clear to me, which tells me that it is likely even less clear to others who do know know you as well as I do. So maybe I could ask you for a little clarification on why you are bringing this up? Is it more about exploring what being a Big Being is all about, or trying to get us to clean up our writing styles, or what?
My comments were made from a hat of Academic Interest or just trying to start some intereting discussions, I was not wearing my thread master hat, if such a thing exists.
I JUST HAD A FUNNY COGNITION. I RUN BEING A THREADMASTER JUST THE WAY MARIA STARKEY AND SANDY WILHERE RAN THERE JUNIORS ON THE APOLLO. SOMEONE NEW SHOWS UP HERE AND I GREET THEM AND THEN JUST SAY START!! THEY ARE EXPECTED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO!
Someone notified me that Sandy Wilhere died 2 years ago. Actually, I stopped hating her recently after Carmelo told me that Don Keeler was a very fine man. I decided to stop hating Don, Sandy Maria and also Sue Anderson. I am glad I stopped hating Sandy before she dropped her body!
I love Purple Haze, I'm very glad she joined us and is contributing here, and I totally got the meaning of her post on the 3rd dynamic right off the bat, (the one that blew Lakey out so much), and I really enjoy the way she uses language. I wouldn't change a thing about her. :thumbsup
Megadittos! I am going to break a rule here and say that she is way up there with Yvonne, Rog, Dart, Carmelo etc. as legends on this Board. She was right there with Yvonne on the day CCLA opened and began audting Celebrities. We talk about it, I tried to be an auditor and got kicked off the course and wrote checks in Treasury, I meant well and gave it my all but she DID it, she did it from day 1 right there with Yvonne. There is something about we old Celebrity Centre Staff from the early years. When we meet each other, there is a bond there that will last this lifetime and beyond. As I shook hands with Chris Many on Dec. 19th, we both said the same thing simultaneously and that was, "Those were the days man, those were the good old days."
However, I am aware that her use of Scientology jargon in this particular instance makes it very difficult to understand her meaning for many of the readers here. She said: "It takes the third dynamic to run out the engrams of the third dynamic." That is nearly totally unintelligible to someone not fairly well indoctrinated into Scientology jargon, and would likely sound like gobblety-gook to a reporter, civic or religious leader, law enforcement officer, human rights activist, concerned parent or teacher, etc. who happened to be reading on this thread in an attempt to learn and understand more about Ex's and their experiences on the local scene in So Cal. (Don't think they aren't reading on this board!) This is a personal history as well as So Cal history thread, so it's logical that we would attract such readers eventually.
I say that on a Lakey run thread we do not tone down our communication so as to appeal to the newbies who do not know what we are talking about. We can put parentheses and define the terms briefly inside them or put foot notes, No toning down of content to the lowest common denominator. If a person is interested enough and of good character they will ask for clarification and we will courteously supply it THIS IS AN ELITE THREAD FEATURING SOME OF THE FINEST THINKERS AND DOERS ON ANY BOARD AND WE DO NOT DUMB DOWN CONTENT.
So in that case, more words, supplied by the rest of us, helps a reader to get a fuller meaning of the concept. It's too cumbersome to try and translate every thought on every topic out of Scientologese into normal english. On the other hand, I think one of the effects of a Big Being is that when they speak or write, they are well understood by most listeners or readers. Brevity doen't always accomplish that, as you have pointed out. Sometimes the writer
assumes that their target audience has knowledge or experience and will fill in the gaps. In my experience, that makes for a lot of MU's (misunderstandings) and frusteration, and people tend to turn away from those writers.
I want to be clear that I am not arguing that we should "dumb things down" or interpret every single thing written here, just that I feel it's going out on very thin ice to start talking about who is more OT or who is a Bigger Being based on their use of language, and might alienate and needlessly inhibit people who otherwise might jump in with their two cents worth. We have people here who do not speak english as their mother language. We're a world-wide group, even though we're writeing in english, it doesn't mean we're all gonna be good at it. It's probably best in general (most functional and facilitates free flowing comm) to help people to feel less self conscious about their writng style, spelling, grammer succinctness, length of posts, etc. and not more.
If something about a member's writing style is really a glaring problem for some reason, you can always pm the person and handle it privately that way.
Or call in the calvary and contact the Mods.
I personally LOVE long posters and deep thinkers, for the most part, but I also enjoy playing on threads where posts are short and punchy and comments fly back and forth pretty fast.
I am also a contrarian and a rebel, notice the length of this post?
Don't try and take MY words away from me, I'll bite ya! You think Carmelo's doggie is fierce...
). This is what I think. I think if your dog really thought that the Rotty was attacking him, he never would have been able "to get on top" of that situation...I think your dog perceived that the Rotty was attacking you, and went into defensive overdrive the way Parents do when their kids are in danger. I think he was not being so protective of himself, but of you. You're one of his special persons.
