05.23.2002 - 3:47 p.m.

I learned a telling word today:

ostraneyiye � (Russian) �making it strange�

I remember once, right after I�d gotten my driver�s license, I was sitting at a stoplight. Really looking at it, and thinking about the word: Stoplight. Stop. Light. S-top-light. Changing the emphasis: StopLIGHT. Pronouncing all the letters: Stop-lig-het. Why�d they call it a stoplight, anyway? Why not a golight? Or a slowlight? It does those things as often as it stops. Intersection controller? It�s a funny-looking thing, if you take the time to look and wonder about it. Three bubbly stacked things hanging from a wire by a clawlike connector, and all the little drones driving the cars obey it without question. Practically without even noticing.

By the time my light turned green, I didn�t even know what a stoplight WAS.

Or a few days ago, when I was trying to write an email to publicize a new service, I spent a good couple of hours trying to decide if I had it right- Had I given enough information to really explain it? Should I add more? Or was the email too long to hold the attention of someone whose inbox is already overfull? Should I have cut some of the information, relying on interested persons to contact me with questions? What would someone reading it really think?

Does that happen to other people? I think the problem is that if you try to look at something objectively, trying to check your assumptions by actively looking for the ways of thinking that you would normally discount, then everything becomes equally likely, equally valid as a reason. Equally reasonable as a course of action. So, for instance, if I wanted to cheer up a friend after they�d been laid off, I could do several things. I could act like it never happened, because I know she�s embarrassed about it and wants to move on, but she might think I was being insensitive. I could be sympathetic and attentive because I know it�s a hard knock to your pride when that kind of thing happens, but she might feel better if it didn�t seem like a big deal. There are counterexamples for everything, an unlimited array of perspectives to choose from. I get lost in them, forget how to use them.

It's called a stoplight, and not a golight, because it's functionally more important that people stop, and because 'stopping' represents a break from their previous action, 'going.' See? It�s not that I don�t understand, it�s that I�m always thinking myself away from the obvious answer. If I let myself think long enough about something, I almost always grind myself to a halt.

And that�s ostraneyiye.

-stonebridge

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