as small as a world and as large as alone

2:23pm November 18, 2013

If you don’t want to click on every single picture to make it bigger, here is the PDF version:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/92647909/Thought.pdf

Basically, I kept seeing that “Rarely do I have a THOUGHT…” thing circulating over and over through my dash over the past few months, minimum.  And I kept seeing all these people I know going “Yes!  That’s totally and completely me!”

But I couldn’t say that.  Because it completely doesn’t explain how I think, AT ALL.  So I made one that did.  It’s longer.  Because my thoughts don’t translate so well.  So it takes longer to talk about them.  But regardless of the difference between my and the original person’s thoughts, we get the same result:  Either long-winded, or inarticulate.

Transcript below the cut:

Rarely do I have a (THOUGHT) on its own.

BUT WAIT!  This isn’t the one where you see a diagram like this:

[Diagram with lots of lines connecting lots of circles.]

that’s supposed to represent my thoughts.

NO…

This is about why it’s so hard to GET to that level in the first place.

Usually it starts… like THIS:

[Closeup photo of tree bark.]

[Next page is over the top of the same photo, and says:]

I don’t mean there’s a picture in my head.  Temple Grandin I ain’t.

It’s a TEXTURE or a MOVEMENT or a COLOR or a SMELL or a SOUND or a TASTE.

ALL with the COMPLEXITY of REAL SENSATION.

[Photographs on top of each other of various aspects of a redwood forest:  redwood sorrel, redwood needles, redwood bark, banana slug, etc.]

This is a more COMPLICATED thought.  

It's NOT “thoughts about thoughts about thoughts.”

It’s many SENSATIONS piled on top of each other.

Each one is SPECIFIC and DETAILED:

– Redwood needles crunch under my feet

– The visual texture of the bark on a certain tree

– The smell of winter in a redwood forest:  rain, mold, soil.

This is one form of SENSORY PATTERN.  These things are connected by EXPERIENCE, not IDEAS.

[Negative image of redwood bark on top of redwood needles and redwood sorrel.]

Then there’s this…

This is SENSORY but not as PHYSICAL.  This is the hardest to explain.

Maybe the best way is that it’s sensory – NOT abstract – but not directly experienced.

It contains JUST AS MUCH DETAIL

…as the texture felt by sliding my hand over redwood bark…

…or the feel of my body’s motion turning cartwheels through the forest.

It has its own rich sensory language, but is impossible to translate.

But even THIS:

[Arrow pointing to an image of the forest floor with a superimposed negative image of redwood bark]

is pretty hard to SAY.

First you have to translate it into THOUGHTS:

[Another one of those thought diagrams, with three nodes.  The first one is a piece of redwood sorrel, connected to a green square, and a nose.  The second one is a redwood needle, connected to an orange square, and a foot.  The third one is a tree, connected to green and brown squares, and a hand.]

…drat, it’s already LOST all the IMPORTANT parts.

Then you have to translate it into words:

“the smell of sorrel”

“redwood needles crunching under my feet”

“texture of tree bark”

And since the words convey NOTHING…

I either:

1.  Become long-winded because I add more & more words in a futile attempt to SAY it all…

OR

2.  Become inarticulate.

P.S. The 2 translations, one from experience to ideas, one from ideas to words?  That’s why words exhaust me.

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