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3:25pm December 18, 2011

Across The Divide part one

The following and all the ones after it are my current draft of this thing, who knows how or if it will change.

[This is Part One of Across The Divide, a long article I’m breaking up into sections so it’s more manageable.  Please read the parts in order so it will make sense. Here are the links to the other parts: Part One (you are here), Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight.]


I am writing this long before my finger taps it into my iPod.  Because I can’t write it right now.

Staring across the divide at all this writing by other people.  My mind seems to be responding with its own ideas and patterns.  

But if I try to write.

If I try to write everything shatters.

The thoughts are gone.  The world is gone. The words on the screen are gone. Everything is scattered flying pieces.

It’s the movement. The movement to act rather than react. I can react to the screen just fine – scrolling causes no trouble.  But to act upon my own will.  That takes every scrap of cognitive power I’ve got.

Which means no more power for reading and no more power for thinking and the world turns to liquid and I’m not aware anymore of anything but intense discomfort and swirling chaotic patterns.

So I don’t cross the divide. Not now. I look across. It looks so close but it feels like a wide, deep canyon.  I trust my instincts.  I wait and I watch.

I know that some time every condition will be right. It’s like a rocket waiting for a launch window, or a stork waiting for the right combination of thermals.

I have to be able to move. And the words have to be in position in my head to flow down my finger.  I have to be able to type.  I have to be on the other side of the divide.  My mind has to be quiet in just the right way.  I have to be able to feel around in the dark for the location of the right stream of words.

Then the words, already written onto my brain long before, will come out of my finger onto the screen.  Without any awareness on my part of creating them. It’s like channeling myself, without the dubious paranormal connotations.