“The Backtalktionary”

@. The Dark Side Really Gets a Bum Rap. From the dark side you have a wonderful view. As fast as that. Watch out! I bite. I play dead. Around the corner I am not a museum. Almost everything you save, aside from love, is an insult to your future. Out the door.

A. This is “the skinny”: You can always say something back to mean people or to phony people without thinking about it too much. This vehicle is being driven by Richard Ames Hart. If you need me, you can reach me. RichardRoe “@” aol.com.

B. Quick Links:
     [Complete Backtalktionary]
     [Smalltalktionary for Kids]
     [Super-Super Introduction]
     [Egghead-Hayseed Wars]
     [Annihilation of the Phony]
     [Not A Big Manual]
     [The Skinny War]

C. Twelve Examples:

(12). “I'm mad at you!” Famous people hear things like “I'm mad at you!” from deranged fans all the time. If a total stranger marched up to me and said, “I'm mad at you,” I'd freeze. Let's freeze them, too, for a moment.

Twenty seconds later a deep part of my mind provides a (Vision) I see an adult bending over a dog, shaming it. The dog, not knowing what the hell is going on, wags its tail in submission. (Fin) A more aggressive part of my mind suggests, “Food fight!” and the other half of my brain cries out, “Onion rings!” The most devilish part of my brain starts singing, “I cried a tear-r, because of you ....”

Fifty seconds have gone by, so let's bring the deranged fan back on-line. There's one school of thought that suggests, Bully the bully! Many guys would simply say, “Fuck you!” Many aggressive women might launch into something like, “That may be, this or that, or it may simply be you have a shoe up your ass, and if you really must know, I'm mad at you, too!” A faux therapist might say, “And I'm so proud you can say that! For you, it's a scoop of ice-cream!”

Meanwhile, you begin to get the idea the deranged fan has been stewing in their own juices for quite some time, ready to spring. All day long they've been ramping up or rehearsing for just such a skirmish: “I'm mad at you!” Do we really want to go there?

(11). I said, “I'm mad at you!” to Siri on my iPhone six or seven times, and the bot replied, “I wonder what it's like, being mad?” the first time. Then, “Was it something I said? || Fine. Stop squeezing me. || Not at me, I hope. || You know what they say about blaming the messenger, Richard... || Was it something I said? || Take a deep breath. Another.”

See how smart Siri's becoming? And hollow? What's underneath? The responses get boring. They're actually empty. The trouble is, what about you? You do much better at an atomic level. And the reason is, your emotions get to signal up from your belly. They get to pick and choose. They get to learn. They get to guide you into pure honesty. And you've got ingredients for another day.

(10). My teacher used to say, “Richard, what took you so long?” I had no idea what he was talking about until a transcendent change of scenery allowed Twistina to mail me this note from the East Coast ...

(9). Q: “Can misery evaporate?” A: Yes. Curious that your question embodies its answer. Haul it up from the Ocean of Being. Disengage any hooks or entanglements. Separate it from its backbone. Then it will evaporate.

(8). Q: “What is the Intimate Thought?” A: You've tried everything else. Why not? Something that will make her angry. A rose on a lattice, no?

(7). In organizations like IBM, people work in silos with their wings clipped. You're a nincompoop if you do anything original. Everything's a fantasy, including the work of the Wright brothers in a bicycle repair shop. “We've made an airplane that can circle back!”

(6). I'm in a basket, wrapped in cloth, floating in the bulrushes.

(5). I am a horse being born in a stable.

(4). I am taking my first breath: “Al-lah!”

(3). It's night. I'm dreaming, and in the (Dream) I have no arms and legs. (Fin)

(2). The stars are shining bright. The moon's reflected in the rippling shattered light. I know it's Walden Pond. And in the morning, I laugh. Exhausted, I'd fallen asleep in a bunch of bugs, twigs and mud. I remember my stepfather, some random guy on the shore, crying out, “You have to change your attitude!”

(1). I can make a small adjustment. I'm making huge tsunamis in the bathtub! Water all over the place. A little girl inside my heart warns me, “Your mother!”

0. The real trouble a person experiences when they hear an irrational verbal attack comes from a flood of negative emotions which are so powerful, the person has trouble adhering, without a little sly practice, to their own inner beauty. With certain ideas, a person stops what they're doing on autopilot and considers an “otherness” – how to be self-respecting & kind in particular situations. For instance, this idea from David Daniels :: “It was really different in the old days – There were so few people – They could really, really help people.” (See thegatesofparadise.com). While David was alive, I stole as many Sufi ideas as I could. Now when someone says, “You should write a book!” instead of getting bent all out of shape, I simply say, “Whatnot. Finely nuanced.”

1. Welcome those of you from WorryDrifter.com! If you were expecting something to do with driftwood, you may be pleasantly surprised. Maybe it's a kind of driftwood that floats up from the mind, that has the capacity to snag worries, and float them away.

2. Worries, after all, are simply ideas that capture the emotions, making them go round and round, going far beyond a fair assessment of the situation, bringing about emotional pain. Worries steal your happiness! So why can't another order of ideas dislodge worries and carry them away?

3. Children see bullies in the outside physical world, and cope with mean people best they can. This website [backtalktionary.com] is devoted to specific ideas for defending a person from bullies, and their mean ideas.

4. So if the worry-maker inside a person is also regarded as a bully, can't the ideas at this website also be used to knock off a person's INNER BULLY? The inner tyrant is worse than any bully in the outside physical world because it's living inside you! So how can you quell it? And why would you want to? Because not only is it stealing your happiness, it's bringing about a terrible price! It's etching emotional angst deep in your psyche.

5. You may be using so much energy keeping all this bottled up, you go around feeling tired all the time! So why not search for ideas that can wrestle your worries off their track? Why not grab a piece of driftwood floating by, attach the latest worry to it, and watch it drift away?

6. This may seem ridiculous, but so is any worry!

7. Phonies are just incontinent. Crystallized that way. All that anger and bluster. They couldn't crap on the battlefield. Too bad.

8. There's (a.) racism, (b.) sexism, (c.) purism, (d.) ageism, (e.) idiotism, (f.) elitism, (g.) tribalism and (h.) patronization. You'd think there'd be a shorter word for that. Anyway, I have a shortcut. I HATE EVERYONE!

9. And perfectionism. I'm telepathic! I can write with my throat.

10. Work back from the future. Have an aim. Nip troubles in the bud. Let life play out.

11. The Backtalktionary for Kids is under swift development. It's at [smalltalktionary.com] with three secret links to our magic breathtaking [Zing-Ching-Tarot]. Leave feedback at RichardRoe@aol.com. Thanks!

12. You know how you can pump gas & cut your fingernails at the same time? Or how young people can send text messages on their cell phones while they simultaneously tap out the dots and dashes of Morse code? So, too, this website is about defending yourself with words & being happy at the same time.

13. For instance, when a waitress pops up and asks the irksome question, “How do you like it?” or when a jerk pops up from around the corner and says, “What's your annual salary?” or when a friend simultaneously asks, “Are you doing okay?” you can choose from a whole panoply of associated responses ... while being happy!

14. There's coarse beauty and there's fine beauty. People just say stuff, not because any of their stuff is true, it's because you don't have the exact knowledge to defend yourself. Pretend you're Tonto or Leroy Jethro Gibbs ... They use scripts ... You wait for your writers to feed you some “natural” lines. Then you just say it. There's no right way, you just say something back in the process of learning. Your deepest mind will catch on. Your deepest mind can defend itself. Help it wake up. Say something back in the River of Time and wait three days. They crucify you, you say something back, then you wait three days.

15. If you mutter, “NIGHT SKY!” other people could easily hear it as, “Nice guy!” Or, when you really need help, “ICY FIRE!” feints “I see fire!” & works much better than “Help! Help!” “ICY FIRE!”)

16. People have the right to set boundaries and not be pushed around by other people.

17. Furthermore, a person has every right to cry out, “SURVIVE!” if someone in another car blows their horn for your attention, rolls down their window, and yells something totally incomprehensible to you.

18. Notice how language curves around and through you. Bullies design attack words to settle in. Rehearse short scripts to dislodge them before they can get to you. Choose half (½) a response. Hold the second half (½) back for another day.

19. Mr. Trump your father, Ms. Clinton your mother & you in the middle fatootsed. Everyone's frowning up. He's a brute, she's overwhelming & I don't care if you paralyze in there. War machine, bureaucracy & debt bondage. Id, superego & ego. Tie this one to this one. Use one another. Keep this space clear. It's you!

20. Don't let bullies get away with it. Nip their words in the bud. Throw 'em out! You can't really make a mistake. Practice talking really slow.

21. There's a permanent adversarial culture in this country. It's best not to say too much. Lay low! :: “To Confront Someone is to Empower Them.” (Moldavian) || “Fight for Your Way.” (Korean) || “Our Biggest Mission in Life is to Avoid Boring Fools.” (Scottish). This is small-talk survival! Once you've found yourself again, check out some background material I wrote in 2012 having to do with “Raw Anger.”

22. I drive a Yellow Cab in the city, San Francisco taxi 1010, and today I met a man from Australia who interspersed observations about those who are “driving while entitled” (d.w.e.) and drawing my attention to a certain farmers' market along our way. Conversations are like that. Most people are pretty nice, many don't know exactly how to say something, but their heart is in it. There's nourishment there, between the words. When there isn't nourishment, I feel, it's often because one or both of you are allowing “driving while emotional” to overpower you, or run the show, leaving you pretty much hollowed out, stifled or empty. A sudden burst of epinephrine is a weaselly substitute for endorphins. This website is designed to bring new associations into the mix, so as to allow a sense of humor, a sense of restraint, or a sense of far-flung experience to open up, and allow nourishment to creep back in.

23. The main idea of “Non-escalating Verbal Self-defense” is to say as little as humanly possible, to quiet your mind and sense yourself like a cat, until you get a chance to integrate certain words or phrases into your everyday parlance. As an exercise, try saying “—CONSIDERABLE!” every time you hear the word, “looking.” So, as an example, a gangster says, “What are you looking at?” and you matter-of-factly say, “—CONSIDERABLE!” It never hurts to be friendly! A clerk says, “Just looking?” and you say, “—CONSIDERABLE!” A security guard says, “Are you looking for something?” and you say, “—CONSIDERABLE!” Your girlfriend says, “Stop looking at me like that!” and you say, “—CONSIDERABLE!” That may be the wrong thing to say, so you hold in reserve, as a backup to “—CONSIDERABLE!” the (clever!) one-word response, “—Impunity.”

24. Now, since you rarely hear the trigger word “looking” in everyday life, let's go for the granddaddy of all attack words, “you!” Try saying one of two responses to the word “you” all through the day, until you feel entirely comfortable, and your sense of humor has risen above the threshold of wherever it might have been buried, if in fact it was entombed, your sense of humor, that is. Not your comfort. It's good to consciously raise the tension! Just do it and hold your breath until you have to laugh. Then wait a day for this exercise to sink in ... Never explain yourself! The two responses to “you” are “Take a chance!” and “Trust me.” The best of luck to you!

25. A baby is a creature “stuck” as a creature unfolding into the future. How can you attack something like that? How can you be .. be .. become that? Where inside you is a magnet drawing you into the future? And who, what, and why doesn't want you to defend it? Draw yourself to this place. Attach yourself to this place. Do anything you can to find yourself propelled into this place. It's you! What has happened in the past is not you! It's that simple. Once you find it, inside yourself, you'll find a force that can defend itself.

26. When you're high socially, you can live on any level. You learn to complain little, argue sparingly & manifest simple beauty at a very early age. If anyone's mean, you get up & walk out. You could put me in a mental hospital and I'd do all right.

27. Don't let people fool you into making things ugly — People who for whatever reason are there to bother you, to trap you, to bludgeon you. They love to smell like dead raccoons so they can sneak up on people. There is an art: a script that is very, very useful. “Sure thing. Give it a chance. I might ask you the same question.” They've invented something called the mainstream, and anybody who isn't mainstream is a total idiot. Most people feel very lucky if they feel they're mainstream. “Okay, so what are we going to do? Killer!” There's a being inside that needs nourishment, so you nourish it! It's an awareness thing. It's fate. Don't try to figure things out. Feed what's inside you!

28. There's nothing to do. Want what you have. It's like a magnet. When it's in the water, the fish will see that. Everything charged! You should grow like an onion! Go easy on yourself. You know, you just plan your day. Don't cheat yourself. You never know what they're going to do. You have to give up hating other people and concentrate on having a good life. “I'm taking a real vacation on the day of your gathering. I'm not going to be there. My plans aren't final, however. Thank you!”

29. “You'll Never Be My Friend.” For some accidental reason one little kid pushes another little kid away and says, “You'll never be my friend!” When you're a toddler, an awful lot of your mind is preverbal, and because this part of you doesn't know how to respond to personal attacks such as “You'll never be my friend” in words, it simply files them away, buries them, and forgets to revisit them as a teenager or young adult. That can be a problem. You can't figure out why it's difficult to make friends. People use reverse clairvoyance to see into other people's minds ... things you may have no idea are there ... and they respond to these perceptions. See the problem? An adult would simply say, “BACK OFF!” & feel the hurt & realize very deeply there are other people. G. I. Gurdjieff wrote “Be courteous to all on the outside, free on the inside.” And a ninety-year-old executive said in an interview, there are two words a person should never forget: “Over!” and “Next!”

30. “i love you.” If a ninth grade girl from Milton Academy starts writing you love letters, take it with a grain of salt. Earlier, if a fourth grade girl says, “I'll show you mine if you show me yours,” wait to get total when your stepfather can't catch you. And later, if your own mind tells you to jump out the window of an NYC hotel on Thanksgiving Day, remind it to SHUT THE HELL UP & kindly refrain from murdering what you shall become.

31. “Restroom For Customer Only!” No one would reject you this way on a military base. Welcome to the world of sticking up for yourself! To the world of taxi1010.com & learning how to CLEAR YOUR PIPES & say something back. The Coast Guard, Army, Navy, Air Force & Marines actually do have public latrines, full employment & universal housing. And if a military commandant (mayor of the city) did have unemployed, homeless or restricted plumbing, they'd lose their job. In any event, out here in the Land of Make-believe, it's nice to find something to say back, to have “an attitude,” to be refreshingly fresh.

32. If I met me, I wouldn't believe a word I say, so ... I just wanted to get that out of my system. It's sort of like telling a police officer after a traffic stop, “If I had come to a complete stop, I'd still be there, now wouldn't I?” So here I am, trembling like a leaf! When anything you do or say in the presence of an incensed police officer is the wrong thing to do or say, Tremble Like a Leaf! And so ends the sixth lesson in Non-escalating Verbal Self-Defense.

33. RABBIT HOLES, An Introduction. Google says the term “rabbit hole” is “used to refer to a bizarre, confusing, or nonsensical situation or environment, typically one from which it is difficult to extricate oneself,” and I thank Google for that! Because it's not in my ordinary dictionary. I saw a man going conniptions because the woman he was with kept pointing across the street and repeating, “Is that one as big as yours?” The guy was practically foaming at the mouth, “I don't even know what you're pointing at!” Now that's a rabbit hole. Another time I heard a guy literally screaming, “How can you tell me I'm lying? I'm NOT lying!” It's safe to say he had just found himself trapped down some other rabbit hole. The only thing I can say is that once a certain kind of person finds themselves absolutely down a rabbit hole, that character (typically, a guy) can go totally bonkers. Such is the fabric of a good old-fashioned soap opera. We guys. However. Many, many rabbit holes have verbal cues, or warning signs, which are really quite interesting. For instance, “Is that ...?” and for another instance, “When are ...?” And for a third instance, “Are you ...?” With the Backtalktionary, you can prepare yourself, or arm yourself, before you take the leap. I'm not saying anyone should knowingly follow any one human being down a lousy rabbit hole, however, I do believe we can do a little better than we often do. P.S., telling someone they're lying, or that everything they're saying is somehow tainted, is called Poisoning the Well of Discourse, meaning, the waters are totally fucked-up from the get-go. Luckily, there are some clever ways to escape.

34. I am seventy years old and evidently a little dodgy, which makes total sense. I was born in Dodge City, Kansas. My grandfather, Harry Ames Hart, had a savings & loan, and on paper probably owned half the city. He had enough money to send my father to Harvard, who, by the time I met him, coached debate at Colorado College. Later, my friends would say I argued a little too much, so I took it upon myself to learn how not to argue. I mean, why not?

35. So when I had just spat into a trash can at the airport the other day, after I'd cleared my throat, a police officer wheeled up on a bicycle and mumbled something in a menacing way. I moved closer. He said, “Did you see anything in there you like?” Now remember, I'm learning how not to argue. He repeated, “Was there anything in there you like?” My speechless phase soon passed, and I simply said, “I was just spitting.” He belligerently said, “Nothing worth spitting on? Is that what you're saying?” I couldn't control myself: “Should I have spat on the floor?” The officer said, “I didn't see any spit,” so I pointed over to the finely polished SFO trash can and told him to go see for himself. Well, that did it. Soon he had me kneeling on the floor (consciously trembling!) while he called his dispatch to do whatever the hell they do when they talk to dispatch. I slowly stood up with the dignity of an Original American. When I was three or four years old two men took me into a bathroom and locked the door while my parents and their friends carried on with their bacchanal party. The men did something to me from behind, which was a total shock to my system, and afterwards, I just remember curling up on the floor and listening to people screaming. I came to realize on some level I had become a living crime scene, court appearance and all, and now here I was some sixty-seven years downstream in the River of Time, trying to make sense of all these things on the deepest level. Maybe I'm the embodiment of a lifelong crime wave.

36. The Backtalktionary (a.k.a. “Non-escalating Verbal Self-Defense”) helps you find responses to verbal violence word-by-word. It's artificial intelligence for the rest of us. My name is Richard Ames Hart, and my sister, Amoret Phillips, is the taxi1010.com artist. Here's how “Each Word Talks Back” works in everyday life:

37. Since we're not stupid, we provide a multitude of choices to clear your mind of the attack.

38. A dictionary or a thesaurus does the same thing. They provide MULTIPLE CHOICES from which to choose. So do we.

39. Look for a SINGLE comeback that serves your purpose. It's easy!

40. They don't teach this stuff in schools, though they should. That's because of the I.T. problem: “Irresponsible Teachers.” (Whenever I mention the I.T. problem, you should actually think “Irresponsible Teachers.”) It's similar to mentioning the “N-word,” making us think “Nigger!” It's all on account of the I.T. problem. Our society is all fucked up due to the I.T. problem & their sheep-like adherence to so-called political correctness. Soon we'll be reading The N-word of the ‘Narcissus’ by Joseph Conrad. There IS such a thing as Denzel Washington, who definitely isn't a nigger. He's a distinguished member of the dark-skinned people. Just saying!

41. Hopefully we'll be able to normalize all this — niggers, nazis, news junkies, actual junkies, nut jobs, nationalists, & nobodies alike — and notice who's unnoticeably using artificial intelligence & supercomputers to skim unimaginably mammoth amounts of money off the top, leaving everyone else — the ninety-nine point nine percent — pinned down by debt — debt bondage, it's called — car payments, student loans, home mortgages, rents, medicines, health care, insurance costs, legal quagmires, imprisonment, bogus entertainment, so-called higher education, completely phony economic models ... and do something before it's too late. They don't even fly in the same airplanes we do — Listen to Richard D. Wolff on the radio — The people whose pictures you never see don't actually make money, they vacuum it.

Innovative. Think of money as ransom notes. At some time in the not-too-distant past, you could walk into a bank, pass one of these little “ransom notes” to a teller, and a bank official would fork over the gold. You can see the inherent criminality in this exchange, everyone could, and you'd go your merry way with “your loot!”

43. So someone in some foreign territory decided to take this enterprise to a whole new level. They got the bright idea you could dispense with the gold altogether! Instead of passing you “the gold,” they'd simply pass a note back, “a receipt!” with the notion you could come back at some unspecified time, exchange “a withdrawal slip” for ... your original ransom note! He-he-he!

44. The term “money” was “coined!” However mere extortion was not good enough. They (the “foreign power”) decided to throw in kidnapping as well! They realized how easy it would be to “kidnap your intellect,” and not even tell you what was behind all this. “I'm glad you're showing some interest!” they'd say with a smirk, forking over a copper penny, as kind of a joke.

45. With time, the term “money” became tightly associated with “move!” With money, you have no idea what's behind it. And with “move!” you also don't know what's behind it. They both have to do with operations in which you're being pushed around without knowing “Why?” Rules on the fly! Some “foreign agent” in some bureaucracy is literally demanding you exchange “money” for goods and services, or that you “move!” It truly taxes your intellect, which, incidentally, is still being held hostage! “And if you don't move,” their uniformed minions declare outside the bank, “you'll get a ticket!” ... a retrograde ransom note! (“Cut more of us in on the action, sweetheart!”) Don't even try to go there.

46. The phrase “Fuck you!” is really a cover-up for “Kill you!” which is derived from “I'll kill you!” and its healthy partner, “I hate you!” Think of a four-year-old boy crying out “I hate you!” to his mother, then being punished by his father. Then the boy covers the whole experience with shame & buries it under sheetrock & paints the inner cocoon wall elephant pink. It takes about three days to complete.

47. So he grows up NOT saying “I hate you!” or “I'll kill you!” or “Kill you!” (which are honest expressions of anger.) Instead he goes around THINKING “Fuck you!” It helps to understand what's underneath everything, and how things are disguised. They'll never uncover it in school because of the I.T. problem.

48. The Backtalktionary itself provides all the words in alphabetic order, and eventually you can [click here] and go there. No ads, no requests, no scams. This is because Amoret and I are pretty much hippies, and along with Al Gore, the actual inventors of the Internet. Think of it, you I.T. problem! How often have you devoted twenty-four years of your precious lives to further the development of humanity for free? By the way, shouldn't Artificial Intelligence be a little more than “proving the machine is smart?” Sure, Google, IBM, Microsoft & Apple are smart. But what about the rest of us? Does exercise equipment run around trying to prove it's a big strong piece of machinery, growing stronger every day? No! Exercise equipment helps PEOPLE grow stronger. That's one of the ways Artificial Intelligence might pan out ... making YOU more capable in everyday life! Teaching you Italian, perhaps. Or Bulgarian. For free!

49. Amoret and I work hard. Eventually we'll solve both the I.T. problem and the IRS problem. Honest people with connections will figure out how to monetize all this. Then we can refute the taxman's claim “this is a hobby.” Ha! I refuse to fight with them.

50. Don't fight with a pig in a sty, they say, because the pig likes it! And in the heat of the moment, if they continue to entice you with presents & insults, which you refuse to accept, who gets to keep them? Stay up on the sidewalk! There's other people. Gail Collins might be someone to listen to. She writes for The New York Times, and today, Thanksgiving Day, 2016, her column is entitled, “Carving Donald Trump.” She says, “Over the past couple of years I have noted on several occasions that Donald Trump once sent me a letter saying I had the face of a dog ... In the name of accuracy, however, I have to correct the record. I dug out Trump's missive the other day and discovered he did not actually say I looked like a dog. He said I was ‘a dog and a liar’ with the face of a pig.”

51. By the way, we also get around to providing responses to [generalized attacks]. For instance, if someone begins an [argument] for some cockeyed theory, you can simply switch sides from what you actually think! They say, “I don't believe in global warming,” and you can say back, “I know, right?” For another instance, if someone says something sarcastically (which forces you to fork your mind along two simultaneous paths), you can cop both paths at once, by saying, “Well-minded!” For a third instance, they [sarcastically] say, “Oh, yeah! We're really having global warming,” and you say ... “Well, the temperature of the earth's inner core is about 10,800 F, which is annoying the hell out of Godzilla, and besides, we have real estate sales pending in Miami Beach, so please, Don't Rock the Boat!” No. I didn't mean to say Everyone does. I meant to say, “Well-minded!”

52. RIGHT OFF THE TOP: White people believe they're descendants of kings, and black people believe they're descendants of slaves. That's all nonsense. We are all, every one of us, descendants of survivors! They all made it in brutal times, and they managed to do goodies and make children. It's universal. That's truth. Anyone walking around today who is actually alive is far superior to all dead people. Put a live person next to a bowl of ashes and you will instantly see the difference. Who's better? Shakespeare or you? You! Shakespeare is an ash! His art was to send reflections of experiences down the River of Time. And even if a person does believe they're the descendent of a king, does it amount to more than a tiny spark? We can do much to protect nurturing ideas of all sorts by cultivating the soil of simple humanity.

Topher Sanders, a reporter on racial inequality for ProPublica, described in The New York Times how a little white girl told Mr. Sanders' 5-year-old son what he can and can't do because of his skin color. [“Only white people,” said a little girl. I heard it but I wasn't quite sure what I heard. “Not you, you're black,” said the girl, reaching out to touch my son. “You're not white. Only white people can play.”] Here at taxi1010.com you can learn what to say back, even if you're five years old. You just have to be slightly worse than the other person, a little educated. Topher Sanders' article is called “‘Only White People’ Said the Little Girl,” in Opinion: The Sunday Review: The New York Times, October 16, 2016. In what follows you can find responses to individual words. Your job is to simply pick and choose from an assortment.

53. The whole idea of this website is to sit up on a fence somewhere in your childhood and learn how to respond to onslaughts of insincerity, word by word. If you can do it, you can trick the other person into being real or genuine. Essentially, there's different kinds of music, and you can quickly learn to suss out hostility so you can either get away, or have some fun. (For instance, playing “Cowboys and Originals” :: cowandori.com || shaqeonit.com when you were a child.)

When you know what to say back to irrational speech, the effect is inocular. People take one look at you and see you're immune. They don't even try to say certain things. They don't even try.

54. Imagine an original world in which you never knew what to say back. If someone insulted you, you'd feel bad, get really angry, or suddenly find yourself in a fierce argument with a total stranger. Maybe you'd pretend to be deaf. Soon you'd be roaming the world feeling hurt, angry, cut-off or numb. However, if you had it to do all over again, wouldn't it be nice to wind the clock back and respond with something totally satisfactory? To have an optimal response? For each particular situation? Annoying small talk would melt away. Confrontations would disappear. Many nice things might happen and you could begin to get mystical. You cannot control someone else's behavior, but you can control how you respond to it.

55. A hundred thousand years ago we went separate ways, and now here we are, reconnected. Where on earth have you been?

This website provides specific alternative ways to respond to difficult people, the ones who don't know we all come from the same place, by marrying comebacks to “trigger words.”

56. Let's get right to the heart of the estrangement: In our modern standoffish culture, it feels as if people are trying to distance themselves from the world with a remote control. Understandably, this makes children, drifters, teenagers & the economically pinned-down feel alienated, cut-off, isolated, ignored & insignificant. Wow! We do better with dogs. So what brings about the deep-rooted disaffection prompting separateness? You want restrictions on plants, animals; they want restrictions on you. Irrational speech is both a symptom and an enabler of frosty attitudes. Anything to avoid messy intimacy. Look around! Fences everywhere. There must be some nourishment in the soil, some way to break the spell! Arf! Arf!

57. Remember when you were a kid and thought it would be handy to know what to say back even before you were gazing through a palisade halfway up the stairs? In France they call it L'esprit de l'escalier, The Wisdom of the Staircase:

58. “How old are you?” Whenever anyone asks you any question at all, they're making a demand. They're demanding you answer their bizarre question! Many people confuse having someone under their thumb with liking them. Are they running a locomotive determined to flatten you out? The question behind “How old are you?” happens to be “How many times has the earth spiralled around the sun since you were born?” and why the hell should you tell them? What are they, a goddamn astrophysicist?

59. It's not simply that people have buttons other people can push. People have a whole panel of buttons other people can get a hold of, often expressing ill-intent by their tone of voice. They try to go around collapsing other people's dreams. Fortunately the Backtalktionary has a whole slew of defenses from which to choose, depending on the situation, the personal history, and the tag team of psychic bad actors involved.

60. What is the underlying force of bullying? In a political context, Samuel P. Huntington writes, “The architects of power in the United States must create a force that can be felt but not seen. Power remains strong when it remains in the dark; exposed to the sunlight it begins to evaporate.” —American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 75. When someone says something irrational, they are conjuring up power. They are hitting you in the imagination! To the inner child “I don't understand anything you've written” means just anything! Your own mind brings total belief to an expression of power. To bring sunlight to this bullying tactic, apply reason by learning to get very specific: “—I'm in town.”

61. Is this an interview or a conversation? From emptiness or from innocence? “Two reeds drink from the same stream. One grows to become hollow; the other becomes a sugar cane.” (–The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddin Rúmí, 1282 AD, line 270) I overheard a little girl at a Japanese restaurant in Berkeley in 2016 putting it a third way: “I'm craving some fried chicken!” she said. I also overheard a telephone interrogation in my taxicab: “What's the scoop? Tell me the scoop! How long ago? I'm reamed! I'm pissed! There'll be consequences.”

62. Nature puts divide and conquer to wildly good effect. The roots of trees fan out under the soil to become nothing but capillaries, conquering the wetness. We divide highways into lanes to conquer helter-skelter traffic. We divide beliefs into channels as well. The wealthy invented racism to divide and conquer the poor. What if we could pop out of the channels of misery that separate us? Maybe ex-slaves & ex-cons could cobble together labor unions to build secret penitentiaries on Indian lands to lock up entitulates, pharaohs and inner tyrants. What if we could pop out of phony beliefs such as “You are a piece of crap!” which, through repetition, has been etched – practically engraved – under a blanket of shame? That's what this website is about, to divide “you” “are” “a” “piece” “of” “crap” into atoms, to examine every single word, then use new associations to pop out of the channel. The way a baby pops out from the divide and conquer of actual life! Liberation!

63. There's an underlying idea that people can help each other. It's very powerful. Social linguistics can get you off the hook a little so you can go about caring for yourself and for other people. You can learn to repel difficult people and to turn yourself into a magnet for attracting the kind of rich experiences that can open into the flower of a wonderful life. You do not need to shoot up heroin to do this. You can prepare yourself for deeper and finer impressions.

64. If our culture was serious about human beings sticking up for themselves in the face of bullies, a million people would know about this website. It's hard to believe, many grown-ups simply want children to suffer. And out of compassion, children will do it! People want children to stay in the dark. And people in the dark want to reserve their right to be treated like furniture. Sit on me, I'm a driver, a server, a maid, a debtor, a bookend, a No rules. Please sit on me! I've got your back! I promise to sit up straighter!

65. Some people hate meaning. They hate warmth, kindness, and they have no sense of humor about their own anger. They're hardly ever original, so it's easy to prepare for their irrational rage in advance. You can practice.

66. An undercover investigative reporter asked a man at a Donald Trump rally why he was voting for Trump, and the man replied, “Have you heard of Putin?” It's the kind of question – a rhetorical question – that leaves you speechless. It's a Big Pickle, or a predicament. The Backtalktionary creates an associative ladder to help you climb right back up out of a sticky wicket.

67. Even a child can learn how to cultivate a low-rent worldliness without trigger warnings. Say “Nothing to do with that.” Go slow and be specific. Sometimes a bully is just trying to shock you & put you on the spot. How about Silver Bullet warnings? You can be very matter-of-fact about these things.

68. “How much rent do you pay?” strikes me as an intrusive question. They don't even ask where I stable my horses, let alone how many thoroughbreds we own. Does the person who asked me, “How much rent do you pay?” even intend to buy horses? I have no idea. You'd think they'd ask members of their own I lost it!

69. If a child cries out, “That's not fair!” over many days and in many different situations, the little kid may simply be trying to find out what an adult might say back to their own mind. You can experiment to see what works. To quiet your own mind. You'll know. Myself, I'd simply say, “I'll live,” to show the child they can't trick me into feeling guilty. I'd repeat it, too. “I'll live.”

The trouble with books on Nonviolent Communication (–Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD, 2003) or Taking the War Out of Our Words (–Sharon Strand Ellison, 2007) is they're heaping on too many theories! What we're up to here is taking away from the scheming mind, not adding to it. So a person's communication can become clear and transparent. After all, we're not psychotherapists, are we? Does a kid really want to talk to a control freak?

70. (a.) Insults evolve to bypass reason and hit you in the emotions. (b.) Passed from bully to bully, they provide the temporary illusion of strength. (c.) Insults also catch you by surprise. (d.) Often, you haven't heard the insult in such a long time, you're too shocked to know what to do about it. (e.) An example of such an insult is, “Don't get your panties in a bunch!” (f.) You could say nothing or respond in kind by saying something equally debilitating, for example, “You're confused!” or “Is that an insult?” (g.) However, this just fuels the so-called Discount-Revenge loop, essentially trying to diminish the other person, then coming back with all cylinders loaded. (h.) There is a fourth way, alluded to in P. D. Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous (1949), and in Idries Shah's The Sufis (1964). (i.) Both these books allude to the existence of something inside you akin to a magic genie residing in an inner lamp. You begin to get the idea you can search for this lamp inside you, where all the magic resides, and open it. (j.) When you hear an insult, and give something right back, your inner jinni also hears the insult & what you say back, and briefly shares your tension, or pain, then releases the tension along with the pain. It's a question of overriding the insult inside yourself, even if it's a day later! (k.) You want to say something back to reassure this inner entity, and help it grow through & beyond the pain. Don't let your self hold on to the insult, because with its magic it could unknowingly transform the wound into a Flower of Mental Illness. (l.) You also don't want to say something back which makes your inner entity feel insulted, such as, “You're confused!” (m.) Instead, you want to say something to encourage it, to give it due respect, and to allow it to shine through, mingled among your own sense of humor. (n.) Ironically, when you show respect for and speak to your inner jinnee in such a way, you're also showing kindness and respect to the bully in the outside physical world who originally cried out, “Don't get your panties in a bunch!” (o.) It's win-win. (p.) You help yourself grow through it, you help the bully grow through it. (q.) And you certainly don't have to explain yourself! (r.) You can't just ignore slights, lies, or insults, because your genie has already heard them! (s.) You have to defend its inglenook of inner magic! (t.) The bully says something in the River of Time, then you say a little something in the River of Time, even if it's a day later! (u.) What THEY say comes in to you & what YOU say back comes back in to you as well, and has the potential to help you grow. (v.) It may seem awkward at first, like a little sprout in the soil.

71. A certain kind of person can pepper you with pressure questions, taking advantage of your upbringing or natural kindness. Sometimes it's useful to raise the tension slightly just to find out what they may be up to. Think of your responses to the hot grill as simply real-world theater, with you a bit player. It's useful to experiment & rehearse. Contrary to what a third-grade teacher might have demanded from you to “Just answer the question!” there are clever ways to evade unwarranted scrutiny if you're deep inside the shadow of Indian Territory: “I'm an American!”

72. Red Herring on Hayseed: i. The indefinite. ii. Context switching. iii. So-called free association. iv. Baiting. v. Mumbling. vi. Faux argument. vii. Faux innuendo. viii. Tricky critical eye. ix. Spontaneous leaps. x. Devil's advocate. xi. Hijacking the conversation. xii. Boasting. xiii. Making a scene. xiv. Teasing. xv. Fucking with you. xvi. Hooliganism. xvii. “What is that?” xviii. “Made you look!” xix. “Is that as big as yours?” xx. Making a point.