Canards, cons, and cults are of imagination all compact.

Each one sets its trap by pandering to a secret dream or unfaced terror that marks its target personality.

Jon Awbrey

I've been trying to distill my experiences with the Psycho†Social Dynamics of Wikipedia down to an e-pitome of just a few words — not an easy thing for me — and over the weekend I was meditating on the tension between the Object and the Obstacle that I observed in Ed Chi's recent posting on the ASC Blog, as gistified here.

Another theme that comes to mind in this connection is a rubric that I have come to tag with the title of Transference Traps. Whenever you find yourself in a mental fix where you feel like you just have to be appreciated or comprehended or understood by a particular set of people, in spite of all the mounting evidence that it's just not going to happen, then you may already be deep in the slough of despond of a Transference Trap.

That's as far as I get for now …

Jon Awbrey

† screech, screech, screech