After a moment of deliberation, I came to the conclusion that those thoughts aren't mutually exclusive. They were, indeed, cautioning me out of fear -- fear for what would ensue is my inability to employ the proper filters in communication - one of the reported side-effects of prednisone is mania. I assumed [need to still validate] that hypomania is also a side-effect. From the hypomania wiki, here is excerpt:
"According to the DSM-IV-TR, a hypomanic episode includes, over the course of at least 4 days, elevated mood plus three of the following symptoms OR irritable mood plus four of the following symptoms:
- pressured speech; rapid talking
- inflated self-esteem or grandiosity;
- decreased need for sleep;
- flight of ideas or the subjective experience that thoughts are racing;
- easy distractibility and attention-deficit (superficially similar to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder);
- increase in psychomotor agitation; and
- steep involvement in pleasurable activities that may have a high potential for negative psycho-social or physical consequences (e.g., the person engages in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments)."
"Social filters" are observed as absent in those without the social graces necessary to communicate their thoughts -- "Oh, don't mind him, he has no filter".
The next thought that popped into my head was of course "why?". Why is it that we need filters, especially if what we are communicating, as in my case, are raw, unadulterated, and untainted thought? If the goal in communication is to take a message and share it with another (either for for the eventual goal of adoption, or to receive, remold, and share back with the sender of that message, OR to pass along to another receiver), it is prudent to have two components of the communication tuned for most effective sharing. One is the content -- the meaning must be thought through and translatable. The second is the packaging -- if the content is delivered in an unpalatable, socially unacceptable way, there is little point and much wasted effort in formulating the content in the first place, much less going through the motions of delivering the message.
Seems simple enough, yes? Yet we, as a society, have chosen to use the term "filter" as a means of packaging. Instead, what we should be doing is more akin to translating. We need to take the message and make it palatable -- receivable in such a way that the recipient will welcome, embrace and own that message.
However, this definitely does take additional time and energy. Translating anything requires not just speaking the language in which the content exists, but also having in-depth knowledge of the social context to which the message is being delivered.
So, what started out as my thoughts on blogging the need to translate vs. just filter has boiled down to the observation that "it's just too difficult" or that we, individuals of society as a whole, are just too lazy, don't care enough, or don't realize that there is efficiency to be gained by translating instead of just filtering.
