Leah, I’m heartbroken. I am most of the way through “Stranger in a Strange Land”, have discovered it’s the origin of “grok” and I HATE IT. I listened to “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” a while back and found it interesting in spite of the overwhelming misogyny and didactic libertarian claptrap. But SiaSL kicks it up to 11. Seriously. So thoroughly and entirely drenched in male, heterosexual, Judeo-Christian, white, financial privilege it’s like … looking up a new slang term with safe search turned off. Horrifying but fascinating and you kind of want to keep looking to see just how bad it can get but know you’re going to sorry that you can’t bleach the experience out of your brain.
Anyway. I have liked the word “grok”. It’s handy to have a word to goes beyond “know” and “understand” to summarize a deeper understanding of the essence of things. Sometimes it’s a word that just perfectly captures the things I want. Granted, it’s a little bit exclusionary in essence since it’s rather nerd slang, but it’s easy to let people in on the jargon.
But that was before. It maybe poisoned forever now. If I catch myself saying it I will think of this ridiculous book and wonder if using it makes other people think of this dickwad philosophy. And then I will be sad and sorry for the associations unleashed thereby.
I don’t suppose there’s an alternative word? “Internalized” is close but sounds so serious. Maybe it’s been separated from its roots?
-Anna
Boreal Designs 
However amusing I would find the flustered Anna explanation that you “mean grok in a totally non-stranger-in-a-strangeland association kind of way”, I think you could just make up a new word for what you want. People will come to grok your new grok pretty quickly from the context ;). So here’s to glip or tronk or whatever suits your fancy.
That being said, I don’t think many people would catch the reference. And really, I don’t think anyone is going to be mistaking you for someone who buys into the misogynist didactic libertarian claptrap and I don’t think using the term is going to inadvertently lead someone to read the book or suddenly buy into it’s philosophies. So you’re probably safe to let the occasional grok slip into your speech.
Well, probably not. Didactic maybe, but it won’t be because of nerdy literary references. I just hate when racists ruin words. Even words they invented.