Just as explicit games have rules, normal conversation has all kinds of implicit expectations.
If someone asks me a question, I should answer.
No rules = no rule saying that you have to answer.
In fact, if someone says that they are curious about my reaction to something, it’s totally fine for me to just say “okay” and then change the topic to something else that feels more interesting to me.
That said, it is also okay for the other to get annoyed by that and say it, which they might or might not.
So then is circling just the voicing of the ever-present fact that you’re free to violate social expectations if you’re willing to annoy people?
I understand and agree with the stuff about “when you don’t take social expectations as binding that’s simultaneously freeing and difficult”, but that’s already the choice you have. If circling doesn’t include any rules against trying to enforce social expectations in the usual way, then it seems like circling can’t change anything. Is it just the effects of making this fact common knowledge?
Is it just the effects of making this fact common knowledge?
That wouldn’t be an unreasonable interpretation to draw from my essay, though my explanation was only focused on explaining a specific subset of what’s nice about Circling. I focused on that bit because someone asked, but Circling is not just that.
Understanding others. Circling is a constant stream of “X happened, and [person’s] experience of X was Y; it had such-and-such impact on them and they felt this-and-that in response.” It’s one of the best ways to really deeply get what it’s like to be another person, via a high-resolution export of their experience over a small number of moments.
Being understood.
Understanding yourself. Circling tends to slow you down enough that you can start to actually see what’s going on under the hood of your own mind, catch the leaps and projections and interpretations that usually happen without self-awareness. It’s a great way to make progress on thorny, confusing, intractable tangles.
Feeling connected. The shared experience of being in a Circle with other people, and all being “in it” together, staring at the same mental objects and sharing how those objects impact each of you, is really good for closeness and connection.
Experiencing authenticity. Circles provide a closed container that allows you to bend the rules of normal social interaction, which can allow you to relax some of the rigid shapes you have to hold yourself in just to get along with your colleagues and get through the day, etc. It’s a place where you can unmask, at least a little and sometimes quite a lot, at least some of the time.
Building muscle. The skills that Circling requires and encourages are attentional, relational, metacognitive—the same sorts of skills required for therapy or rationality or original research. Circling can be an excellent practice ground for learning how to notice and seeing how thought works.
It’s fun. As previously alluded, it can be trippy. It can be heartwarming. It can be fun like a rollercoaster, or a horror movie, or a long, grueling hike. There’s a wide range of pleasures and delights to be found in slowing down, dropping in, peeling back, and getting close.
So then is circling just the voicing of the ever-present fact that you’re free to violate social expectations if you’re willing to annoy people?
I understand and agree with the stuff about “when you don’t take social expectations as binding that’s simultaneously freeing and difficult”, but that’s already the choice you have. If circling doesn’t include any rules against trying to enforce social expectations in the usual way, then it seems like circling can’t change anything. Is it just the effects of making this fact common knowledge?
That wouldn’t be an unreasonable interpretation to draw from my essay, though my explanation was only focused on explaining a specific subset of what’s nice about Circling. I focused on that bit because someone asked, but Circling is not just that.
Duncan had a nice recent article talking about some of the other aspects: