Prompts, Introductions
An introduction limits what can happen next. A prompt expands it.
We treat introductions as neutral, even kind — a way of easing an encounter. But an introduction actually does pre-mediate. It creates furniture for conversation, an obstruction to people being themselves. Before you meet the person, you meet the description. Before you read the work, you’re told what kind of work it is. The terms arrive from a third party, and from that moment, the encounter runs on inherited framing. Introduction limits intersubjectivity, and intersubjectivity is creativity.
What looks like a connection is often two people relating to the same preformed description, agreeing on a frame neither of them made. The form of value you’ll operate in was fixed before either of you spoke.
What is never discussed is that a performed introduction will necessarily result in median work, because no one is being themselves, and creativity can only happen in embodiment.