context
this is a list of questions that I have around how to be a human who is with or around or in contact of other things, beings, humans. mostly, as a human who is with humans. i made this list in february (2025 february - comic, lab tours) when I was celebrating freed up time and using it on exploring things that mattered or excited me, any things without constraints. Thinking about human relationship and myself in them always evoke difficulty, embarrassment and strong memories. Framing the needs curiosities confusions in words was my way to remember and continue, now in the open outside my head. please tell me if you have an answer or the same question!
list
- 如果去一个新地方，我有信心在那里找到朋友吗？if i move to a new place to live, do i have confidence and ability to find new friends there?
- 罕见病患者互助组织怎么教成员怎么在新城市结识朋友和互助网络的？how do rare disease patients mutual aid groups teach members how to make friends and form support networks in new cities?
- 我跟那个群体/地方的匹配度重要吗，还是内在的关系建立能力重要？when it comes to making friends in a new place, is the fit (and the sensing of fit) between me and the place or community important? or is my intrinsic ability to form any relationship irrespective of the target group and place more important?
- I’m guessing both are worth sensing and cultivating!
- from my experience living alone in chapel hill, and also an online chinese chat about care taking.
- 享乐型的相处，比如浪漫、性、庆祝大餐、散步，是不是又碍于效率（工作、组织、照顾）？（relationality vs productivity) how do i make of the feeling that hanging out which feels enjoyable (such as romance, feast, sex, stroll) are obstructing productive kinds of socializing (work, organizing, taking care)?
- grace boggs、octavia butler说“想象新世界”，这跟创业的progress studies有什么相同不同？这两群人爱的方式有什么相同不同？
- 在社会运动里，人们怎么从现存世界把权力结构带入新世界（的胎）中？in social movements, what are ways in which people bring power structures in the old world into the embryo of the new world? what are ways they stop that? how about this bringing/preventing in other spaces? from Grace Lee Boggs and adrienne maree brown et.al. Emergent Strategy
- 在产品创业公司里，人们怎么把情绪带进关于”客观“的事实和做事中？in startups, what are ways in which people bring emotions into “objective” objects and actions? from mainly silicon valley twitter substack. but also Paladium. The Genealogy of Chinese Cybernetics. for the qian xuesen type that dream of using science and technology to answer spirits and meaning.
- 养育小孩、性冲动和创作作品有共同性吗？is there similarity between raising a child, sexual impulse and creating some artwork? 我觉得没有，荣格、福科觉得有。I don’t think so, Jung thinks so.（elan vital、eros、libido、production、generation、desire to life）
- 发育中的“generation”、怀孕中的“morphogenesis”、发展中的“development”引起什么联想？what does generation, metamorphosis, morphogenesis, development, progress each evoke… in the mother-child, and in the others?
- from the developmental biology and history and philosophy. to be added probably to Talk To Cells reading club
- from Titane and motherhood: what is the metaphor of creation, development in pregnancy?
- 为什么亲密（intimacy）的不同发生方式在我世界中经常是融通的而不是隔离的？why is it that in my world, the different ways intimacy can generate are often melted or have paths to transition rather than separated?
- how to figure out what the emotion one feels is and what the action to release it is？
- 如何训练出能末日重生的技能：关系建立（情绪、冲突面对）、生物物理改造（食物、体力、工程）？how to master skills for apocalypse regeneration: relationship building (including managing emotions and dealing with conflicts), biophysical niche modification (food, physical labor, engineering tinkering)?
- how to socialize as a human: living in human groups require ability to tune emotion and face conflicts and find connections, build or find belongings.
- how to decide what to do with life: as a human, finding vision is also about navigating the physical and social world knowing you are bound to some laws and you will die.
- 如何成为更好的沟通者？包括承诺、妥协、理解、表达、界限 how to be a better communicator? including: compromise, promise, understand, express, bound.
- 被爱是什么感觉？被自己爱跟被别人爱有区别吗？what does it feel like to be loved? is there a difference between being loved by yourself vs someone else?
related
- David Jay. Relationality: ellie recommended this book to me for our shared desire to have family/friend relationships with people that we can live with in a group in the ideal life. what stood out to me so far is the possibility of helping each other come to terms with a very confusing aspect of a self-world relation (e.g. the asexuality online community).
- Anthologies combining personal experience with literature reviews: just as i want to cherish the memories of being in various labs and knowledge linneages, i also want to treasure these amorphous or shaped experiences I have had with communities, individuals, families, friends, lovers and co-loving hobby lovers, strangers, eyes, all of them. some of them.
- audre lorde (1978). uses of the erotic: i love how she was able to talk about something very mundane and gossiped (the word ‘erotic’ and all the social contexts around it) into something new, like an inventor. i like that she is comfortable with showing what she is as a person when she is saying something that aims to be more general (sometimes academic).
- an important undertone behind this question list is sometimes i feel that being with other people is so hard to me and i want to use the intellectualizing and the internal processes as a cushion or sugar to face it. so the note is that when i explore relationship intellectually the result might not be the answer that helps me in life.
- update: after a conversation, I think intellectualizing social interaction is both a leisure and a symptom that I can’t trust my intuition and feelings when dealing with relations, and opt for norms or rationality. I wish for having the environment and self to be honest and intuitive about socializing.