This is a terminological/theoretical glossary—a running list of terms, phrases, theories, and the like that are considered essential to Micah J. Marrapodi’s enterprises (philosophical, literary, etc.).
Last updated: July 24th, 2025.
A
Abstraction: The realm of existence associated with the foliage referenced in “Woodland Metaphor.” Immateriality, spirituality, content—diffuse.
Acceptance: One of two core flavors of love, typically associated with femininity.
Accountability: One of two core flavors of love, typically associated with masculinity.
Actuality: The realm of existence associated with the foliage referenced in “Woodland Metaphor.” Materiality, physicality, formality—compact.
Adventure of Human Being: The adventure of human being is a phrase used to represent the universal ups and downs synonymous with being human.
Adversity: All manner of hardship, suffering, difficulty, and pain generally that cooccurs with conscious existence, arises with interpersonal relationships, and allows for appreciation of peace, ease, harmony, and so forth.
B
Beauty: One of the progeny and progenitors of love. Symbolically represented by a flower, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Being: Existence; State. Static. Destination/starting point/resting point.
Becoming: Existence; Process. Dynamic. Journey between starting, resting, and arrival.
C
Casuistry: Rationalization—clever but unsound reasoning.
Casuist: (A casuistic individual) Raskolnikov in the build-up to (and attempted coverup of) his murder of Alyona Ivanovna.
Chaos: Fundamental force in equal oppositional play with order.
Consideration: The exercise and thus strengthening of conscious, conscientious attendance.
Considerate: (A considerate individual) Jesus Christ in his refusal to remain subjected to the strings of circumstance and base instinct/impulse, his comportment, and his ultimate sacrifice.
D
E
Evil: One of the offspring and originators of indifference. The opposite of good.
Exceptionality/Exceptions: Exceptions disrupt what simply is, insisting on the possibility of becoming or even being something else; exceptionality is the movement of becoming that resists the stasis of being; the exceptional expresses existential intricacy. Exceptionality is the differentiation and deferring of definition that gives rise to linguistic meaning. Exceptionality extends its application wherever there are absolutes, rules, systems, generalizations, etc. Wherever regulation presents itself, there the exceptional becomes, there exceptionality manifests itself, worming its way through the interstitial chinks in regulative armor. Exceptionality reveals that categories can only be so inclusive, and rules can only be so just, not least because the map is not the territory and “just so” is contextually determined. Exceptionality is an altering other—it is both chaos to order and the dots within the paisleys of the Yin-Yang symbol. In addition to subversive divergence, there is another element to exceptionality; the exceptional possesses another feature. That feature is remarkability. Thus, definitionally, that which is “remarkably deviant” is exceptional.
Excepting: Where queering a text would be “perverse read[ing]” or “reading…against the grain,” as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick puts it, in that it challenges traditional conceptions of gender and sexuality, queer reading is also a form of exceptional critique, an instance of excepting a text, in that exceptional reading focuses on exceptions, and by extension, absolutes.
F
G
Goodness: One of the progeny and progenitors of love. Symbolically represented by scales, goodness is actually relative and abstractly dependent. Weighing something is considering.
H
I
Ignorance: One of the offspring and originators of indifference. The opposite of truth. Ignorance is bliss (bliss is ignorance).
Indifference: The intersection of evil, ignorance, and ugliness. Indifference is that which exacerbates the adversity intrinsic to the adventure of human being personally and for others. Indifference is what motivates evil, ignorance, and ugliness.
It Takes Two to Tango: Culpability can be applied to ostensible victims as well as supposed victimizers. This is essential to understand for attempts to help individuals grow and, by themselves, preclude the recurrence of getting harmed. (Person 1 committed x; x happened to Person 2. Both persons should be held accountable. Person 1 should be punished, and Person 2 should be disciplined. The discipline should be a therapeutic effort to ensure that the likelihood of x’s future reoccurrence is decreased through an increase in Person 2’s awareness of their responsibility for their own safety.)
J
K
L
Love: The intersection of goodness, truth, and beauty; That which facilitates flourishing by enabling the overcoming, enduring, ameliorating, and even precluding of the manifold adversity that besets the adventure of human being.
Lovelies: Goodness, truth, and beauty.
Love Triangle: The Love Triangle is the triple Venn diagram used to explain love—see the diagram below. It demonstrates a) that love is at the intersection of goodness, truth, and beauty, and b) that wherever there is evil, ignorance, or ugliness, there love isn’t. (Goodness, truth, and beauty are each represented by one of the three circles with evil, ignorance, and ugliness in the overlaps—in the overlaps outside the circles associated with goodness, truth, and beauty, there reside evil, ignorance, and ugliness, respectively.)
M
N
O
Order: Fundamental force in equal oppositional play with chaos.
P
Past: That which came before the present from the position of the subject.
Potential: That which could come after the present from the position of the subject.
Present: Now, from the position of the subject.
Pretty Is as Pretty Does: Prettiness derives not from external appearance or attractiveness, but from behavioral desirability. When “pretty privilege” is denounced, what is actually condemned are instances of privileging those who possess “physical attractiveness” over those who don’t. There should be such a thing as “pretty privilege,” as pretty is as pretty does.1
Q
R
S
Strings of Circumstance and Base Instinct/Impulse: These strings limit the will. Consideration snips these strings. Casuistry strengthens them.
T
Thing: Individual existential unit (placeholder for any thing, smallest and largest included—i.e., existence as a whole is a thing, so too an atom, so too a dream, etc.).
Truth: Progeny and progenitor of love. Symbolically represented by a gemstone, truth is an essence viewable through the facets of the jewel that is Consideration (the collection of considerations—ideology, table of values, belief system, etc.). Rotating the gemstone is considering.
Two Things Can Be True at Once: This reconciles the simultaneous existence of any given thing a) abstractly and actually, and b) in the past, presently, and potentially.
U
Ugliness: One of the offspring and originators of indifference. The opposite of beauty.
V
W
Woodland Metaphor: All of Being—everything in existence, past, present, and potential—metaphorically represented by a woodland comprising levels of analysis. At the ground level, with root systems, compact dirt, grasses, ferns, twigs, and so forth, there one finds actuality. Moving up through the trees, up the trunks to the lower branches, bird’s nests, and more, one finds the movement from actuality into abstraction—the foliage. The device you’re reading this text on is actual, physical, material, and formed, but in my referencing it for example, it’s abstract. Dreams are abstract. Achieved dreams are actual. The future is abstract with a dash of actuality (it can be determined to a certain extent). The past is actual with a dash of abstraction (“[t]he past trails behind the present like the wake of a ship”).2 The present is a blend of both abstraction and actuality. (The internal rings of tree trunks, the core of branches and cellular makeup of ferns, the lines on the leaves of the trees, and more provide ample complexity to account for the absurd intricacy of existence itself.)
X
Y
You’re Not Wrong, but You’re Not as Right as You Might Be: Variation on the “yes, and” theme that encourages further consideration.
Z
Pretty is as pretty does appears to be a rendition of “handsome is that handsome does,” a line from The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Henry Fielding. “Chapter xii. — Containing much clearer matters; but which flowed from the same fountain with those in the preceding chapter.” https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6593/pg6593-images.html
Watts, Alan. “What Is Zen?” Terebess Asia Online, https://terebess.hu/english/watts-What-Is-Zen.pdf.