SA previously:
> > Takes preconceptions and old tea-swishin' to
> chase ghosts. It's also called assuming without
> dialogue.
Marsha:
> I seem to be in a 'denser than a door nail' mode.
> I'm not sure what you're getting at.
SA: No... please ask, I've only recently stumbled
upon this 'chasing ghosts' experience. It started
with Platt. He kept sending me posts with quotes of
Pirsig, from Lila I believe, and I had said I agreed
with his post, but he kept sending me more and more.
He was arguing against me still, but yet I had already
agreed with him. No matter what I sent back in
response he would send another. He was sending posts
to me in his own world (and that's key to chasing
ghosts). No matter how I responded in agreement and
then wonderment as to why he was continually sending
me more posts trying to argue his position - he was
arguing not against me anymore - then WHO? A ghost I
would say. Then long after Platt noticed I agreed
with him way back in his first post on the topic, here
comes Bo lagging behind and responding to Platt with
an off-the-wall answer that had nothing to do with the
discussion between Platt and I - for Platt and I had
agreed from the beginning, so, with Bo's response that
went on about something that had nothing to do with
Platt's and mine discussion, then Bo was arguing
against - WHO? A ghost I would say.
These ghosts we all chase from time to time are
premeditated, preconceptual, sometimes these ghosts we
lash out against are hidden behind our words, we're
mad about something else that has nothing to do with
the current topic so we find a way to fit in our
off-topic disgust and it comes across very skewd.
At work, which is probably were I picked up the
phrase 'chasing ghosts' for it comes up every once in
awhile, and this concept at work fits in very well
here. When we're trying to find an item in the store,
sometimes a shelf that is supposed to have product on
it somewhere in the store, a clue comes through the
system. Whether it's from our item counts in what we
are supposed to have in the store or an update in
revising a shelf, but then when we go looking for the
shelf or item this memo or note coming from a computer
system is the only clue we have. Everything else we
are checking is a dead end, and nothing in the store
is showing that this shelf or item even exists.
Eventually what will happen, which I had to do the
other day, is to search out various places in the
store that the item and shelf could be. Upon my
second optional location I found what area it might be
in, but then upon asking the person that works in that
area they let me know that the shelf and items never
were set-up in the store in the first place so
revising them couldn't happen.
Well, to make a long story short, about half-way
through this process of searching for the shelf and
items somebody said to me, "Then again you might be
chasing a ghost. For that happens from time to time
in this store." Sure enough I was chasing a ghost. I
was chasing something that all this information that I
was relying upon to build this picture was
preconceptual and full of assumptions based on past
experiences (due to little information would lead to
these shelves and items being in the store, they just
fell off the grid for some reason items will be in the
store for so long that they fall off the grid, the
system thinks they are not there anymore, but they
are), but this time the shelf and item was not there -
I spent about a half-hour talking about something and
looking for something (doing all this planning and
stuff) for something that wasn't even here - wasn't
even happening.
That's what I find Bo and Platt did. They
searched and said some things about something that
wasn't even happening. They were chasing ghosts.
Sometimes chasing ghosts, not to point out Bo and
Platt only, can be when somebody thinks your in a bad
mood and you know your not - what ghost are they
chasing?
Also, when people are talking past each other,
this is another example of chasing ghosts. When you
think I'm saying this, but really I'm not, yet, I am
saying that, but somebody insists you are saying this,
that's chasing a ghost, too. Ham does this often. He
can't think outside his little safety net so he sees
ghosts a lot, and says people are saying this and that
when they really aren't.
the netherworld,
SA
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