Meaningless and obscure thoughts

[Stephen Drake]

You are weird MontanaMan, truly weird! Maybe, just a wild suggestion here, maybe you should write a novel! I have this sneaking suspection you might have the talent for it.

I've always known I was weird. I do try to figure out if its just me, or is everyone more than a little weird in their own way.

As a matter of fact, I have written a few words. One completed novel and another 3/4 finished. And another less then 10% complete.

 

[Stephen Drake]

The thought thought it thoughtless until thinking it through proved it thoughtful.

That is tough to get my brain around, but profound, after a fashion.

 

[Marc Joan]

The only reason we know that we see the same red or colours (in general excluding colour blind which actually confirms the rule) is due to the identical layout/structure of the eye and the consistency in the laws of physics which can be directly measured by anyone.
.

Everyone is exposed to the same physical phenomena - e.g. a certain wavelength of light bouncing back from a given object, all others being absorbed, hence the colour of the object - but there is no way of knowing if MontanaMan's experience of a given wavelength is the same as anyone else's...Perception is a construct generated by the brain, and each person's brain may generate very different responses to the same environmental cue, but so long as everybody's responses are consistent with the responses of others, we won't know if/what the differences are, because we can't experience the experiences of another.

 

[Stephen Drake]

Nicely stated @Marc Joan !

 

[Emurelda]

Everyone is exposed to the same physical phenomena - e.g. a certain wavelength of light bouncing back from a given object, all others being absorbed, hence the colour of the object - but there is no way of knowing if MontanaMan's experience of a given wavelength is the same as anyone else's...Perception is a construct generated by the brain, and each person's brain may generate very different responses to the same environmental cue, but so long as everybody's responses are consistent with the responses of others, we won't know if/what the differences are, because we can't experience the experiences of another.

But then you extend it to sounds, textures, shapes tastes even...nothing is sacred anymore!

Next time someone says..'do you see what I'm seeing'....hesitate.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I haven't yet reached the age where I feel I can claim wisdom of years (45 barely scratches the surface), but I can say that I have always known that I was weird ("but weird in a good way", as my father tells me). I have never felt that I experience the world like others. But what 45 years of keen observation has taught me is that everyone else feels the same way. There is no normal. We create norms in society, but not a single person meets all those norms. We're all weird, we're all misfits, we all see the world in different ways, and no one can ever fully understand what goes on in another person's head, or what the world looks like through another person's eyes. I find that thought comforting.

 

[Marc Joan]

But then you extend it to sounds, textures, shapes tastes even...nothing is sacred anymore!

Next time someone says..'do you see what I'm seeing'....hesitate.

Yes...I've mentioned before how this complicates writing. Because if - for example - when I write 'river', one person thinks of a gentle English stream, another thinks of the Yang-tse in murderous flood, and another thinks of the Ganges receiving smouldering funeral pyres, then it is difficult for a given piece of writing about 'river' to trigger the same images and emotions in all readers. Part of the reason why everybody's tastes are different perhaps.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Writers are antennae, picking up on ideas and noticing anything interesting said within their hearing. William S. Burroughs reckoned that 'Language is a virus from outer space', so it's little wonder that we sometimes suffer from the static of random thoughts.

His observation prompted performance artist Laurie Anderson to write a song of that title.



One thing that I've noticed since flipping my creative switch, to return to creative writing with my second novel, is that while unusual thoughts and observations come to us all of the time, it's not something that we can allow our fictional characters to have. On the contrary, they have to remain focused and be all action to carry out the plot of the story. It's no good having them notice that "oooh, that doggy looks just like Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street", as they're shadowing a suspected murderer through a busy shopping mall.

Fictional speech is nothing like real talking either. It's reckoned that most conversations are fairly meaningless, part of general socializing rituals, with very little real information imparted. Again, this is not something that we can do when writing a story, unless it's to show that a character is being evasive. Our characters are transmitters of information, some of it guarded - but still there for an observant reader to notice.

 

[Carol Rose]

Well you know what they say … perception is everything.

(But who is THEY????)

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Well you know what they say … perception is everything.

(But who is THEY????)

Asking the real questions now

 

[Jason Byrne]

It's no good having them notice that "oooh, that doggy looks just like Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street", as they're shadowing a suspected murderer through a busy shopping mall.

I will mention that there's always the handful of times it's okay to break the rules, and that one time your character is shadowing the murderer through the mall and stops to notice the dog that looks like Oscar the Grouch and you pull it off right, it is delightfully spot-on and true-to-life. I agree with you completely — I'm just saying characters like that are fun to try because it is such a challenge to get just right.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

This book The Whisperings Within looks at how we think about what we think, or vice versa.+

Or give Lethbridge a go for some chompingly good mind fodder: http://www.cesc.net/scholarweb/lethbridge/lethbridgepart1.pdf