Skillful Speech and the Karma of Digital Campfires

The one with the words

Hi friends! My name is Logan and every couple of weeks I post about mindfulness, identity, and culture through the lens of a recovering academic. Before diving into today's topic on speech,

Reminder!

The newly named “Adoptee Alchemy” group will be August 18th, 4-5 PM PST. There will be a tiny talk, a guided meditation for about twenty minutes, and the remainder will be chatting about orienting toward and cultivating joy.

Here’s the Eventbrite link to sign up and a time zone converter.

July’s gathering produced this endorsement, posted in the Fireside Adoptees Facebook group.

"The language was adoptee friendly, and helped lift the congestion that is usually stuck. I wish I'd have learned to meditate with Logan to begin with, it would have been an easier path than struggling through normie language."

Key Points:

• Skillful Speech: Gil Fronsdal’s THINK acronym gets more letters

• Speech Acts: Words create worlds

• #SignallingMatters: Hashtags are our digital campfires

• #AdoptionIsTrauma: A discussion on definitions before getting THIiNKy

• Takeaway practices for working with loud inner critics

Let's start with the first key point:

Skillful Speech

Words are hard.

The Eightfold Path is an ordered list for a reason. Get your view straight, then your intention, and then work on how you communicate to yourself and others.

I’ll provide an acronym from Gil Fronsdal for THINKing about when and what to say in any kind of communication.

1. Timely: Is now the time to say it? The time can still be “right,” even if belated.

2. Honest: Lying isn’t a great practice.

3. Insightful: Is what you’re saying adding to the conversation?

   (My add: Inquiry: Could what you’re about to state work better as a question?)

4. Necessary: Not everything needs to be said.

5. Kind: Is what you’re about to say kind? To yourself, too?

I’m adding another letter, “y,” to Fronsdal’s acronym.

6. You: Check your privilege. Are YOU the person to say this?

Thanks Giphy, and Will Smith. Na na na na na na na

Now that we've covered how to get THIiNKy with speech, let's explore how words shape emotion, identity, laws, and more. My route is through the concept of

Speech Acts

Our words create our worlds, and our worlds often reinforce the words we choose. Many mindfulness teachers who specialize in non-violent communication, like Donald Rothberg and Oren Jay Sofer, emphasize speech can be the ultimate relational practice.

Whether writing or speaking, the language around us shapes our world in political, social, cultural, and emotional levels.

Let’s begin with John L. Austin, the linguist whose Harvard lectures compiled in the classic How to Do Things with Words and introduced the idea of a “speech act.”

One often-cited Austinian example is when a judge pronounces someone “guilty” or “not guilty.” This utterance creates material, lived change. In this vein, all laws, government documents, programming languages, are speech acts—it’s language that gives shape to society and how people can act within it.

For a broader example, consider the pledge of allegiance. In the United States, most school days begin with students facing the flag, hand over heart, reciting their national allegiance. This creates a lived repertoire of national identity. Recitation, gesture, the right time, the right props = the national pledge of allegiance.

Judith Butler’s groundbreaking work connects speech acts with sociopolitical identities, particularly gender. Whether when looking at an ultrasound or at time of birth, the proclamation of “It’s a [gender]!” connects anatomy and gender and applies it to a brand new human. This pronouncement is culturally reinforced through norms based on things like gesture and wardrobe. Gender is performed, not a state of being.

Shoshana Felman, in her tremendous work The Scandal of the Speaking Body, considered phrases like “I love you” and “I promise.” These examples edge us closer to how speech influences emotionality and relationships. Consider if you’ve ever been told “I love you” by someone you didn’t feel the same way toward. Or how you’ve felt about a broken promise. Or you found out someone lied to you. Often, there is a visceral, felt impact.

Language matters because it acts, names, ranks, creates categories, stokes division, builds bridges, and deepens semantic relationships.

It's therefore important to recognize this isn't limited to spoken words, especially in a digital context. You don’t need to be chronically online or a search engine optimization expert to know

#SignallingMatters

“Speech” isn’t just verbal. I have argued formally for years and informally over beers: all hypertext (like links) and metadata (like keyword tags) are speech acts.

The hashtag originated as a means to organize and archive information for quick classification and retrieval. Web 2.0—which converted everyone with an internet connection into a content creator—hashtags became digital campfires for folks to gather ‘round.

Who clicks on a hashtag? People interested in it. Who uses a hashtag? People creating content around it.

In “Praxis, Hashtag Activism, and Social Justice,” Chenxing Xie’s team considers the discourse around the hashtag after anti-Asian hate crimes rose nearly 340% between 2020 and 2021. (These were, of course, only the reported crimes classified by police as “hate” toward a protected identity category.) Language like “China virus” from national leaders probably didn’t help.

They analyzed nearly 305,000 #StopAsianHate tweets through the lens of their “5R" social justice framework, deciding whether the content was

1. Recognizing injustices, systems of oppression, and our complicities in them;

2. Revealing these injustices, systemic oppressions, and complicities to others as a call-to-action and (organizational/social/political change);

3. Rejecting injustices, systemic oppressions, and opportunities to perpetuate them;

4. Replacing unjust and oppressive practices with intersectional, coalition-led practices;

5. Reflecting to “look back and translate their [digital] actions into learning points.”¹

Their analysis revealed stark differences between the content of #StopAsianHate (SAH) and #BlackLivesMatter (BLM). Whereas previous studies showed BLM content spread somewhat equally across the first four R’s, SAH content was less developed forms of social justice communication, staying largely in the realms of recognition and revelation.

Despite sky rocketing hate crimes, (the mostly Asian American) people using the #StopAsianHate hashtag communicated little outright rejection, replacement suggestions, or even reflection. In other words, most discourse was on things that were happening, not why or what to do about it.

This led the authors to question how much of the model minority myth still persists. I’d add that, historically, Asian Americans have often operated more along lines of national origin—identifying as immigrants from specific countries ('I’m second-gen')—rather than as a race-based contingent. Consider the degree of pushback from other Asian groups as Japanese Americans like George Takei had their citizenship stripped and were interned for years.

Therefore, I agree with Xie’s team: things like #StopAsianHate are pivotal advancements in Asian American history. In large part because, to pick up a thread from my intentions post, Asian Americans are not the same AND are not separate.

Lisa Ling reps #NoH8, a campaign against the ban against same-sex marriage in California

Recognizing the power of speech can help us replace these toxic stereotypes and ask for more. We just need the words to make change happen and the courage to use our voice. Maybe even call forth some intersectional Yellow Rage?

(☝️ was a big inspiration for me in undergrad. Listen, Asshole is better quality audio, still on the fetishization of Asian femme bodies.)

Let’s consider another hashtag:

#AdoptionIsTrauma

A traumatic event, like relinquishment, happens and ends. Trauma is not a passive state of being, as a verb like “to be” would imply in #AdoptionIsTrauma.

Just as overwork, perfectionism, and complicity are Asian American habits learned through social and intergenerational trauma, adoptees have their own structure of experience.

For relinquishees, separation is our shared defining traumatic event, resulting in a series of lived habits and modalities that remarkably persist across language, culture, race, sexuality, economic class, education. Things like hypervigilance, disorganized attachment, and a predisposition for self-medicating (babies cannot self-soothe) are all relinquishee patterns. (It is crucial to add not all relinquishees are adopted.)

Meanwhile, adoption is rooted in phrases like, “you are home,” “this is family.” It likewise lives in phrases like, “you better behave, or I’ll send you back!” and “Surprise! We lied to you for four decades, you’re adopted.”

“한국말 못해요,” I repeated while in Seoul, I don’t know the Korean language. “I’m adopted,” I’d say, trying to explain myself to strangers.

“I’m sorry,” they’d respond, looking genuinely sorry.

Staci K. Haines argues trauma-driven behaviors change how we inhabit our bodies, speech, and thoughts.

This “survival shaping” impacts identity, interaction, relationship, physiology, emotions, behavior, and thinking or interpretation. The shaping remains, even when it is no longer useful or relevant to the current context. It is preparation for the worst, rather than being able to assess for danger, safety, connection, and dignity; and the nuances of each.

Her ultimate point is that we can “re-form” our shape to let more difference in, and allow more ways of being for ourselves. Trauma happened. Yes. AND that is not happening now. Echoes of complex stress are happening now. There’s a significant difference. We can move with trauma in a way that doesn’t keep us defined by that single experience.

As with #StopAsianHate, I understand the base goal behind #AdoptionIsTrauma: to start acknowledging the needs and experiences of adopted people. Both are legitimate forms of recognition and are, therefore, compatible with the 5R framework of social justice.

Yet both make the most humble of asks: acknowledge me. Neither offers a replacement. Recognition is a form of justice, but asking folks to gather ‘round this pit of trauma is not yet replacement or rejection.

In my post on Sympathetic Joy, I referenced this exchange with a queer Korean American adoptee:

J said, “I used to go to [an annual adoptee conference] every year, until I realized I was bonding over unprocessed trauma.” Over several annual reminders about the lack of awareness, respect, or representation of our primal wounds, J’s feeling about the community went from empowering to wallowing.

I’m not asking for anyone to “get over” their trauma. I’m asking for folks to consider their speech through the lens of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is allowing more to exist, including our joy and strengths. We can become trauma masters, trauma stewards, because we are more than just traumatized.

This newsletter may not change the #AdoptionIsTrauma trend, and that’s not necessarily my goal. Recognition IS the first, necessary, step, just like “J” needed that conference every year for community support. It’s not wrong.

And we can ask for more. We just need to use our words.

Let’s get THIiNKy with this newsletter

Is this timely? Uh, the plan has always been to publish something twice a month. Yes. Responding to reader feedback below: I do hope this essay contributes to a timely discussion around how to work with trauma in a more emotionally-inclusive way. Yes.

Is this honest? Well, it’s my honest opinion and research. Leaning yes.

Insightful? I believe so. Yes.

Inquiry? Was it insightful for you? Undecided.

Kind? Intention isn’t impact. Is this essay kind? Could it be kinder? Neutral.

You? I’m Asian American, adopted, and have written many pages on hashtags as speech acts and the social effects of language. Yes.

I guess I’ll hit “continue” to publish this then. But before I do,

Takeaway Practice

Negative self-talk is a commonly overlooked place to work with speech. If it’s hard to apply THIiNKy to self-talk, try these things post-fact:

On the fly, it can be helpful to immediately say the inverse (“Actually, I am the most brilliant person alive!!”), hear how egregiously grandiose it sounds, and then acknowledge the you’re probably somewhere in the middle with the rest of humanity.

Sometimes, like when one gets distracted in meditation, it’s helpful to note it and move on. About ten years ago, I spent a week tallying the times I judged myself or others. It was…a lot of tallies. On the way to befriending yourself is knowing yourself.

Creative Coalition: September 1

The Creative Coalition offers a safe space to stretch creative muscles, engage in mindful speech, work with inner critics, and practice mutual appreciation.

On September 1st, from 4:30-6 PST, we will play Takuma Okada’s Alone in the Ancient City. After a short sit, we’ll alternate between responding to prompts and sharing/appreciating.

Feedback from August: "There was no judgement at all, just love. [...] Thank you for making the support group I never knew I needed."

Here’s the sign-up link! Come create with us. :)

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Bio and Mentorship Info

Logan Juliano, PhD (they/them) is a mindful integration mentor offering 1:1 sessions and group workshops. They teach at the University of California, Los Angeles and hold a PhD in Performance Studies.

1. Xie, C., Liu, P., & Cheng, Y. (2023). Praxis, hashtag activism, and Social Justice: A content analysis of #StopAsianHate narratives. Asian Journal of Communication, 33(2), 121–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2023.2180529