New Shrapnel extension meme - Scars

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

BUT, see I see shrapnel as the idea, scars as the result.  Those wo keep shrapnel inside of them either

A. Can't grasp the idea.
B. Refuse to.
C. Want to keep the shrapnel as a crutch.

People who keep their shrapnel as anything other than spoils of war tend to me to be whinyassed attention whores who play the poor pity me I have shrapnel type.

So I don't see disagreement as shrapnel, I see it as the reaction to shrapnel.  Those I had to ponder on are the scabs Ipicked and picked until I made myself have a scar, whereas if I had just accepted it and left it alone, maybe ignored it, or turned away, I might not have a scar from it.

Theres a thought with the scabs.  It's those we have to come to terms with that leave the little scars because we pick at them?

[LMNO]

Why do the scars have to be the ideas you have disagreed with? 

Why not just the ones you learned from? 

Does that also mean that scars can disappear with age and knowledge?  What I once disagreed with vehemently as a 20 something makes a lot of sense as a 40 something?  So does that make me boring because some of my scars have faded away?

Because in my conception of it, the ideas (shrapnel) I agreed with are still in me.

And i suppose, like any knowledge, some things learned can be forgotten.

Also, no one's saying you can't get hit with the same shrapney at many different points in your life.

For example, I read Goedel Escher Bach when I was 17.  I then read it 17 years later, and it was a completely different book for me.

[LMNO]

EBK, I guess that I don't take the metaphor as far as you do.

I don't try to relate Shrapnel™ with actual bomb fragments that kill soldiers and asian kids playing in rice paddys.

So, your view is valid, but I can't personally build off of them.

[Cramulus]

Dunno... it seems to me that some aspects of personality might be genetic...

example?
[/quote]

Asperger's Syndrome & Schizophrenia

[P3nT4gR4m]

Can't help thinking those things are more a result of faulty hardware than actual personality traits.

[AFK]

Perhaps it's more that certain aspects of personality are informed/shaped by genetics.  But there are enough environmental variables at play, that they don't end up alike. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Perhaps it's more that certain aspects of personality are informed/shaped by genetics.  But there are enough environmental variables at play, that they don't end up alike. 

I like that description.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

EBK, I guess that I don't take the metaphor as far as you do.

I don't try to relate Shrapnel™ with actual bomb fragments that kill soldiers and asian kids playing in rice paddys.

So, your view is valid, but I can't personally build off of them.

You lost me.  I thought we were looking at shrapnel for this discussion as ideas.  The comment was made that we only get scars from that shrapnel or idea which we disagree with. 

I don't relate shrapnel to bomb fragments.  I never meant it that way.  If you are refering to the "spoils of war"  I only meant that the shrapnel/idea was kept as a reminder or trophy from the internal battle of acceptance or whatever, not a crutch or used as an excuse.

[Payne]

I like the idea of Scars similar to Cainad, in thinking about shrapnel as errent ideas.  Some you want to take with you, some you don't.  But you can't "un-ring the bell".  Even if you don't like an idea, you now know it exists, and you will take it into account from now on.

So, scars would be the ideas you've learned and disagreed with.  Which makes p3nt's OP accurate, in that I'd like to meet someone who has encountered a lot of ideas but has not necessarily subscribed to any of them.

Well this kind of sounds like an idea I keep coming back to, the "Sunlight" metaphor in the original Shrapnel thread. Which I still haven't really worked through to my own satisfaction.

You need the sun to see ("good"), too much sun will burn you ("bad"), sometimes you see things you don't WANT to see ("bad"), but a little too much sun will give you a tan ("good").

These are all subjective terms, personal to each and everyone of us (one mans meat is another poison, and all that), so you might change the "Goods" and the "Bads" for each experience around to whatever you like, or make up new concepts, like a bad "good".

The thing is no matter how you interpret it, the experience is there, you can't undo the experience, you can't un-see the sun.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I like the idea of Scars similar to Cainad, in thinking about shrapnel as errent ideas.  Some you want to take with you, some you don't.  But you can't "un-ring the bell".  Even if you don't like an idea, you now know it exists, and you will take it into account from now on.

So, scars would be the ideas you've learned and disagreed with.  Which makes p3nt's OP accurate, in that I'd like to meet someone who has encountered a lot of ideas but has not necessarily subscribed to any of them.

Well this kind of sounds like an idea I keep coming back to, the "Sunlight" metaphor in the original Shrapnel thread. Which I still haven't really worked through to my own satisfaction.

You need the sun to see ("good"), too much sun will burn you ("bad"), sometimes you see things you don't WANT to see ("bad"), but a little too much sun will give you a tan ("good").

These are all subjective terms, personal to each and everyone of us (one mans meat is another poison, and all that), so you might change the "Goods" and the "Bads" for each experience around to whatever you like, or make up new concepts, like a bad "good".

The thing is no matter how you interpret it, the experience is there, you can't undo the experience, you can't un-see the sun.

Maybe "useful" and "not useful" to the individual rather than good or bad?

[Payne]

I like the idea of Scars similar to Cainad, in thinking about shrapnel as errent ideas.  Some you want to take with you, some you don't.  But you can't "un-ring the bell".  Even if you don't like an idea, you now know it exists, and you will take it into account from now on.

So, scars would be the ideas you've learned and disagreed with.  Which makes p3nt's OP accurate, in that I'd like to meet someone who has encountered a lot of ideas but has not necessarily subscribed to any of them.

Well this kind of sounds like an idea I keep coming back to, the "Sunlight" metaphor in the original Shrapnel thread. Which I still haven't really worked through to my own satisfaction.

You need the sun to see ("good"), too much sun will burn you ("bad"), sometimes you see things you don't WANT to see ("bad"), but a little too much sun will give you a tan ("good").

These are all subjective terms, personal to each and everyone of us (one mans meat is another poison, and all that), so you might change the "Goods" and the "Bads" for each experience around to whatever you like, or make up new concepts, like a bad "good".

The thing is no matter how you interpret it, the experience is there, you can't undo the experience, you can't un-see the sun.

Maybe "useful" and "not useful" to the individual rather than good or bad?

Whatever works for you.

Positive/Negative
Good/Bad
Useful/Not Useful

any of these, and more, and everything in between.

I was just trying to illustrate an incomplete idea I have.

[Valerie - Gone]

see I'm not sure that scars are a good extension. It makes sense because in the material world, explosions injure people. But I think that leaves us with a rather victim-like relationship with culture - that it's just constantly injuring us and leaving us battered, and we have to overcome. But it's kind of fatalistic. The majority of the shrapnel we're exposed to is benign. And it seems weird to classify even the good effects of shrapnel as "scars".

I think that depends how you look at it, Cram. I have a ton of scars, and I don't see them as bad things; I don't see myself as a victim. I'm actually of the opinion that scars are cool. They're indications of a life lived, of stories that you have to tell.  Many of my scars I look at and laugh, because the experiences that caused them are funny when I look back on them now, or they were good times. Not that all of my scars are like that. They didn't all come from 'good' experiences. But I took something away from those 'bad' experiences, and my scars are a reminder of the lessons I've learned from those experiences.

I think it's all in how you perceive things. You can be a victim, or you can be a survivor. You'll have the scars regardless of how you perceive those experiences.

[LMNO]

I'm with Val on this, kind of.

Mostly because I look at it in this case as a "scar" being a mostly-permanent Change that happens to your body.  It doesn't translate too well into the actual world because IRL, the reaction to any shrapnel would be Pain, where as in the metaphor, shrapnel could cause great Joy, as well (I have a jagged, twisted Scar® running up most of my body thanks to Musical Shrapnel®).

To Khara:

When I relate Shrapnel to Ideas, I want to take with me the concept that there are certain Ideas I want to keep, and certain Ideas I want to leave behind.

If Idea = Shrapnel, then I want to keep some shrapnel inside me, and I want to pull some out.

So, the idea of Scars is that even if I leave some Idea behind, the very act of encountering the Idea has changed me.

[Triple Zero]

Shrapnel, when removed, leaves scars.

Without the shrapnel there are no scars.

Without either shrapnel or scars there is no personality.

I prefer the company of people who's personality consists mainly of scars than those who seem predominantly composed of shrapnel.

i like this a lot.

it's a short concise way of metaphorically describing something i really agree with.

it's about people taking control as opposed to thinking "oh well..."

[A.N. Other]

Shrapnel, when removed, leaves scars.

Without the shrapnel there are no scars.

Without either shrapnel or scars there is no personality.

I prefer the company of people who's personality consists mainly of scars than those who seem predominantly composed of shrapnel.

Gotta be careful of the freaks with too many scars. In any sense of the word, it could just mean a clumsy person, be it clumsy with a knife or clumsy with thought. And those are the type of people you have to watch out for. They might take you down one day, and it won't even be on purpose.

Or, at least, that sounds like I was trying to be meaningful.