…statement. Woe betide you, hands, if you clap for the wrong thing.
Open hands like to clap, and loudly. Provided whatever is being applauded was worth inflicting a little pain on one’s own hands.
I like to applaud. Provided the cause is worth it. A fantastic guitar solo, a wittily surprising speech, or a courageous statement deserves at least two hands. Enthusiastic hands strike their own insides, because what was seen or heard was so good. And stirred up such enthusiasm. Hands are approvingly noticeable.
The applauded shine like something freshly polished.
No need for a gingerbread-horse grin — the face says it all.
Clapping also has a rather dark side.
When it turns half-hearted and deliberate — a slap instead of a clap — woe to those being applauded. Such manifestations are toxic and wound deeply whatever soul might still be present.
Slap and clap rarely go together.
An audience reaches the peak of disapproval when the clapping stops entirely — goes on strike, so to speak. A kick in the pants is the mild version of the injury, when the span of applause turns into a silent gap. Ouch. Then something went seriously wrong.
Whoever first dubbed this business of hand-clapping an App-Louse can be sure of applause. Enthusiastic, glowing faces give their hands the order — mostly unconsciously — to join together in mutual clapping.
The longer the moment lasts, the more the recipients glow. Enthusiasm needs a valve, to free one’s own chest of all that pent-up energy.
A few scenes make their way into my memory-cloakroom.
How often have I seen ballet dancers, musicians drenched in the sweat of their own talent, and speakers bathing in their own flow of words, standing on stage and basking in the rain of applause.
Tactful approval with a thundering outpouring of decibels is always welcome, when the performance given has landed well with the audience.
I am an enthusiastic applauder at live performances.
I know from my own experience how stressful and nerve-shredding the moment before a performance can be. Brutal, and sweat-inducing.
A rumbling stomach is just the prelude to the nightmare before the curtain opens, or before the first step is taken in front of a mass of people.
But then comes the moment of reckoning, when the last note, the last word, and the last movement are over.
The silence until the first person applauds feels like an eternity to the artist.
A moment of dread, wondering whether anything will come at all, or whether one should quietly and secretly dissolve into thin air on stage.
A thunder-rumble of moving hands shatters the brutal tension between expectation and reality.
Phew. Went well, once again.
A different kind of applause, that is to say approval, are those likes that let themselves be clicked everywhere, and gladly.
As soon as the mouse pointer on the screen approaches that thumbs-up icon, caution is advised.
Who wants to agree with the wrong post, after all?
Who wants to be shoved into an unwanted corner because the finger was too fast and the thinking too slow?
I’m working on a private experiment with great potential. I’m training my fingers, mouse pointer included, to open up the process before clicking. In other words, the process of thinking about what the next step and click will mean.
I agree, because I pressed an icon.
While tinkering with my ClickApp, the trickeries have already cropped up.
The hecticness and pace of social media is too strong, too demanding, for anyone to want to spend much time thinking.
With that, a few questions surface from the underground: should my ClickApp speed up the pace of thinking, or should it slow down the demands of social media?
For one’s state of mind, the latter option would surely be more soothing.
The longer I spend on this experiment, the less I care for these media with their presumptuous label “social.”
No, I don’t need a ClickApp.
I need my own natural mind, one that simply takes the time to steer things calmly through the synapse-forest first.
That would be a gain for brain and human alike, if both got moved around a little more.
No, AI is not a solution, it’s an imitation.
Thinking, especially the critical kind, is still a thrill when one’s own mind comes up with a solution or an idea.
My head is still a developing country.
Is yours too?
