Who is Nick?

Asking all my life.

Author: Nick Kempinski

  • It all looks the same

    Photo by Dhruv P on Unsplash

    …I’ve kinda given away the ending.

    But let’s rewind.

    Next up in my ever continuing exploration of Ong and Oral Culture

    Conservative or traditionalist

    It’s fair to say oral cultures moves slowly. Things were moving at a pretty chill pace until that good old day in 1450 when Gutenberg turned on the press.

    Ong says it’s all because of mental load. An oral culture doesn’t have room for new things. It takes a long time for new things to stick. Without the written word to do the repeating, new idea’s must be all word of mount, and repeated at nauseam.

    An oral mind relies heavily on patterns and repetition. On sticking with the old things because the new things hurt.

    “Oral cultures do not lack originality of their own kind”

    When I first read that, I thought maybe his literate bias was showing. I’ve said if before, Ong does a very good job at staying unbiased towards orality in his Orality and Literacy. Maybe it was faltering a bit here.

    Ong is also very delicate in his use of words. He didn’t say “oral cultures do not lack originality”, he says, “… originality of their own kind.”

    Some technology seems to come out of nowhere. You think… holy smokes where did this come from: ovens, fridges, cars, planes, computers, quantum computers.

    Maybe the type of originality of an oral culture is through variations on a theme; slowly changed over time until the invention or “new” thing seems inevitable.

    Scissors – take two swords and connect them so they cut up and down at the same time.

    The sandwich – We have meat. We have bread. Why aren’t they together?

    Where have the new things gone?

    And we’re back to the “same same but different”

    Music, fashion, movies, are all feeling like a repetitive loop of what’s come before. The Spaceballs 2 teaser I posted previously echos this sentiment.

    Do you think cars are all ending up looking the same?

    Logo’s all look the same?

    Websites all feeling the same?

    Maybe it’s because our collective oral mind. We’re loosing the cognitive load to take something too different.

    The million user test

    But, look how fast we signed up for ChatGPT or Threads!

    Ong points out,

    In oral tradition, there will be as many minor variations of a myth as there are repetitions of it, and the number of repetitions can be increased indefinitely

    Is ChatGPT really much different than ICQ? Is Netflix so far off from TV? When twitter came out, was it so foreign? You used to send it text messages.

    I don’t think it’s that we won’t all flock to the latest “thing”. I just question our future appetite for true novelty. Newer is ok. Newest if fine. New New? I’m feeling doubtful.

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  • Weeknotes 2025-07-04

    Photo by Mārtiņš Zemlickis on Unsplash

    I want to work on trying to think more like a marathon runner.

    Perhaps it’s the ADHD, perhaps it’s the situation I’m in.

    I tell my kids all the time of The Tortoise and the Hare. I say to myself, I’m not the hare because I’m not cocky and rarely nap. But…

    Maybe I’m hare-like. I do these insane short bursts. I do everything. I run and I run so fast that I crash. My crashes are mostly mentally and emotionally, which my wife loves 🤨

    Also, when I’m in my particular position I say yes to everything, what else am I doing? I make a mountain pile on my shoulders so big… then a subtle wind from life, let’s say a little girls upcoming 4th birthday party, and down it all crumbles.

    I need to get back to simple, slow and, steady.

  • Weeknotes 2025-06-27

    Photo by Growtika on Unsplash

    I’ve been trying to flex the brain a bit more since my last weeknotes.

    Orality and Ong

    I’ve continued my journey comparing today’s world with Ong’s characteristics of an oral culture:

    It’s coming along. I’m enjoying some of the interesting things I’m connecting with. Still not sure how to tie a bow on all of this. However, That’s the reason for the exercise, to explore.

    ActivityPub

    I’ve also continued my exploration of what could be an ActivtyPub platform for me to tinker on all AP idea’s. I’ve taken months to hunt and try a bunch of possibilities out. They are all are really good in their own way, but to me, feel like I’m strong arming what I want it to do. So… I’ve started and stopped and started and stopped, and now I’m started again to do the silly thing, and build something for me and my own brain.

    • Using PHP – because everyone has a server for PHP. Plus it’s the simplest for my hosting and my budget, which should be no more than I’m already spending on hosting.
    • Using Slim PHP – because I want to keep this light. Laravel and Symphony are great, but overkill at the moment. If this becomes “a thing”, then a rebuild would be in the cards, but that’s a 2.0 or 3.0 problem.
    • ActivityPub first – this is where I’ve found my mental problems. Many implementations feel like you’re always fighting some dissonance with a core foundation. It’s an extension, a plugin, a layer it on top of.. all of which work… but… not quite what I’m looking for.
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  • The Case of Copious Callback

    Photo by Jed Adan on Unsplash

    Last week I hammered out a couple more traits of Ong’s Characteristics of Orally Based Thought and Expression. Next:

    Redundant or ‘copious’

    Time for Redundant Repetition

    In oral culture, we repeat a lot. A lot of what we say, we say again and again.

    It’s needed. In a long oral rendition, there is nothing to remind you of that one important thing you needed to remember. So, according to Ong, in oral culture’s, we say it again but in a different way.

    While my very very small kids may repeat themselves, my observations are for the most part in a single instance, we don’t do all that much repetition.

    Where I think things get a little interesting, is perhaps our interactions aren’t isn’t long enough to require the kind of repetition that primary oral cultures required.

    Perhaps our fleeting nature requires more copia than repetition, or perhaps repetition in new technological ways?

    Copious Repetition

    Through various uses of repetitive symbols, linguistic formulas, mnemonics, and other means and technology we do repeat ourselves over and over again.

    In rhetoric, copia, is richness and amplification for stylistic goals. And boy oh boy I think we are copious. We are barraged on a daily basis: “Buy now”, “smash like”, “now this”, “welcome back”.

    Neurologically loud and grandiose media and people. Our technology is built around copia.

    Every fashion, every meme, every song, every book, every perspective open and available and on repeat through the internet in some form or fashion.

    The callback.

    All this talk about repetition and copia, has me thinking about a particular rhetoric device that want to look more into. “The callback”

    TV shows, podcasts, movies now make a game of it. Bringing not only phrases but all things into repeat. Testing our minds with a line or movement from the first Iron Man repeating into the final Avengers or referring to the audience always as Tracey.

    Designing a way to create a repeatable and special call and response that engrains you to a tribe so that others who was it, had no comprehension of it’s meaning.

    It’s a very modern and complex use of repetition.

    Is this like secret handshakes, and symbols. Before literacy we use to have many secret societies filled with rituals and artifacts that could be used or displayed in public with only this “in the know” able to understand.

    Recap

    But back to my point. Let me repeat. Are we redundant or “copious”?

    Scroll through a social media stream. Watch yet another variation of Minecraft YouTube video. Watch the sequel or the prequal, or the remake of the sequels prequal, and you tell me.

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  • FOMO, YOLO, and FOLO?

    Time has opened up for me; so has my ability to keep focusing on my exploration of Ong’s characteristics of an oral culture.

    Today’s target is

    Aggregative rather than analytic

    Linguistic Formulas

    “The elements of orally based thought and expression tend to not be so much simple integers as clusters of integers…” He goes on to explain it’s clusters & phrases. His examples are “not the soldier, but the brave soldier not the princess, but the beautify princess.”

    Oral cultures tend to be consistent in using consistent descriptive adjectives. Not simply saying a soldier or princess. This doesn’t exclude the opportunity for an alternate adjectives such as, his examples, “braggart soldier” or “unhappy princess” but the default position is this aggregate term and default aggregate repeated over and over until normalized.

    These might not really ring so true today in terms of simple descriptive adjectives. However when you expand the language to longer phrases, and acronyms, things start to become interesting.

    • YOLO – You only live once
    • FOMO – fear of missing out
    • MAGA – make america great again
    • GOAT – greatest of all time
    • BFF – best friends forever
    • LMAO – laugh my ass off
    • LOL – laugh our loud.
    • ROFL – roll on the floor laughing
    • PITA – pain in the ass
    • TMI – too much information
    • NSFW – not safe for work

    All of these can be used otherwise yet we don’t.

    I could reveal some thing intimate and use alternate words, but I don’t. I say TMI, keeping the phrase intact and crystalized.

    Each acronym or phrase cannot be altered. FOLO is not a thing.

    … rather than analytic

    Now comes the analytic part. For Ong, the argument was simply put that “Without a writing system, breaking up thought – that is, analysis – is a high risk process.” He then drops-the-mic with a quote from Levi-Stauss, “the savage [i.e. oral] mind totalizes.”

    Essentially he’s saying that oral thought cannot piece meal a concept. It can not look at something in isolation but must have context, inter-connection, situation, as a whole. Saying “a friend” would be like…

    It would be an unfinished sentence to an oral mind and require the formula and some form of aggregate language.

    Is that to say, if I say “best friend” would an oral mind place it in the default position and complete the phrase adding “forever”? If I were to mention “laughing” would there be mental chaos because someone isn’t sure if I’m doing it “out loud” or “rolling on the floor” from it?

    Perhaps the term itself is negated and ignored? Thinking, “they aren’t really friends because Nick never clarified it was best or forever.” Or, “He didn’t ‘literally’ laugh because he didn’t say it was out loud.”

    Maybe for the aliterate a little analysis is allowed? But perhaps not too much.

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