I wish I had a star rating for how age-appropriate any given situation or language is. Like in GTA3.
See, I know what six stars is. They call in the tanks because someone is not doing well. And I get zero stars. I have zero star conversations all the time in public with complete strangers.
It’s in the day-to-day with a young mind that I wish I had feedback on how this is going, so I could assess the situation, and decide next steps. Maybe we need to go balls to the wall six stars. When we see others in danger, language and intensity spikes, we shout at cars, that kind of thing. But sometimes I feel like I see a 3 go to 4, and wish I could race down the alley by the first hospital and calm it down, rather than crank it up.
I imagine at this point, interacting with a seven year-old, part of those floating de-escalation stars is compromise. And not really compromise, it is just that we tend to share the reality of those we co-occupy with (in all contexts, such as how most of you immediately reading this will hear it in my voice ^_~). Think about it: do you hang out in a healthy Venn-zone of reality in your daily life? Is it technical? Social? Logical? Confusing? Responsible? Afraid?
Maybe all those have their own potential six-star stress tracks.
Imagine being seven years old. Is that a reality you could sustain all day? Sure, it’s delightful, a thousand tiny chisels hitting the jaded armor around one’s heart each day, showing the vivid colors of experience that seemed to have faded from view. But I can’t protect that part of reality unless I fight the encroaching violence of adulthood, and I’m not entirely, hmmm, trained for this kind of cognitive dissonance.
I feel like I just summarized an important story.
A random path I’m currently experimenting with is being present. I used to think being here now was a sort of personal schizophrenia. I couldn’t let go of my thoughts, so I twisted them away from me, mental dough to rise separately, but to recombine as soon as possible, so as to not lose anything.
I can’t explain the metaphysics of it, but now I am less dough-y and more like a reversible bag. Of holding. With many “sides”. I completely fold myself around the cloth of who I am in any given scenario. Maybe it’s what you call “confidence”. I am less muddled, more… me.
Quick aside, we have universes inside us.
So when I need to be in the reality that Clover is actively monitoring, I fold. I try. I fold and close the bag, holding the parts of reality in waiting, useless to bother a child with, and doesn’t tell the story of now.
I wish I had a star rating for how age-appropriate any given situation or language is. Like in GTA3.