People that have in-depth conversations with me would probably say I am over-focused on properly defining words. In the recent past, I would have worn this as a badge of honor. However, I now think they may be right, at least in part. I still believe standardized and agreed-upon definitions is a prerequisite when having any kind of grounded philosophical discussion. However, I am attempting to be less triggered by others’ use of language I find to be imprecise or just plain wrong.

All words are of course social constructions. They can mean whatever we want them to mean. What matters at least in the moment is that both parties are understanding each other. To this end, I want to adopt a usefulness metric, by asking myself 2 questions:

1. Is a precise definition necessary in the context of this discussion?
2. Do I foresee a reasonable chance that we can come to an understanding in a relatively short time span?

In the majority of conversations, I feel the answer to at least one of these would be a ‘no.’ In these instances, my options are either to steer the conversation into less troubled waters, avoid using words that need defining, or provide a conceptual framework that is obviously not intended to be a denotation.

This last option I have played around with a lot of late. Specifically, I think defining a word in the context of an equation can be an incredibly useful device.

Here are a few I have used recently:

• Suffering = pain x resistance
  This communicates the lesson that our suffering is as much caused by the resistance we experience to the life we have or the emotions we experience as it is caused by the physical or emotional stimuli themselves. My ability to eliminate pain from my life is limited; however, I have a lot more direct control over my level of acceptance.
  ⠀
• Happiness = # of things acquired / # of things you think will make you happy
  Viewing happiness as a fraction or an index gives us 2 nodes from which to increase it. A lot of people, myself included, spend most of their time trying to increase the top number. However, you can receive the same happiness boost by lowering the bottom number. Also sometimes increasing the top number doesn’t really affect happiness at all, because every time we do so, we add another thing to the denominator.
  ⠀
• Achievement = skill x effort
  In order to develop skill, we need both talent AND effort. I observed a stark example of this my second year of university as a music student.

  I attended two senior recitals in the spring of graduating piano majors. One had a boatload of talent but always put the bare minimum effort preparing for her performances. The other had much less natural talent but put a prodigious amount of time into practicing her recital pieces. At the beginning of the year, the first student was able to perform adequately. During her recital at the end of the year, she again performed adequately (nothing special). The second student choked the first half of the year when trying to perform her selections, but by the time she did her recital, she was highly competent.

  Achievement requires taking the skill you have developed in an area and finding an effective application. So, you could actually give an alternative equation for it: talent x effort squared.

My goal is to create more useful concepts like these to describe the words I employ and leave a more thorough denotations for particular formats and venues.

Namaste.