This is amazing. Thank you for the link, Simon!

This is amazing. Thank you for the link, Simon!

This got me thinking about Baratunde Thurstons Ted talk where he explores the phenomenon of white Americans calling the police on black Americans who have committed the crimes of … eating, walking or generally “living while black.” He reveals the power of language to change stories of trauma into stories of healing — while challenging us all to level up. https://www.ted.com/talks/baratunde_thurston_how_to_deconstruct_racism_one_headline_at_a_time?language=en

I really like this. There is the basis for a deeply reflective empathy-based game right here. “In what ways can you imagine the brick wall stopping x person, even when they do ‘want it enough’?”

Terry, I can’t tell you how much I love your comment. You’ve captured so clearly the root of these “incomplete” aphorisms, and what we need to do to adjust them both internally and when talking to others.

…And that “Ironic” game sounds like great fun!

It started me off on a train of thought related to a game I used to play with friends based on Alanis Morissette’s ‘ironic’: the game was to see what you would need to change about the lines of the song to make them actually ironic (as opposed to just unlucky coincidences), e.g.:

‘it’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife…’

‘…despite the fact that you specifically chose who to order ten thousand pieces of cutlery from based on their reliability at delivering exactly what was ordered.’ [which doesn’t scan as well, to be fair…]

So the application here is, how could you adjust the aphorisms to make them more broadly true…

‘The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it enough…’

‘…as well as the people who have so little bandwidth left after fighting discrimination every day that they don’t have room to fail multiple times’

‘…as well as those whose first failure was punished in a way the mistakes of the privileged never are’

…etc.