(no subject)
Running through archives i pulled this up. I find it interesting. Maybe you will too.
It's hard to convert a vague feeling into words sometimes. Hard to convert thoughts and instincts into something more readily understandable. I guess that's why there is such thing as a proffesional writer, somebody who specialises in finding the precise order and choice of words to portray the exact feeling. Edgar Allen Poe for example. A totally classic poet, and perhaps one of the best at evocing what are perhaps the more base and the darker range of human emotions. Although the actual existence of these states of mind and thought which we call emotions is relatively existential, one can't help but wonder where the definitions of the emotional range of humans are. How exactly do you define the state of mind that we shackle with the single word "sad". It is impossible to define an emotion with such a depth and range. For that matter, how do we know what "sad" is? Surely our experience of the emotion itself ends at our own emotional experience. How is it possible that we can define that the emotion "sadness" is the same for everyone? How can we tell that what we are infact feeling isn't "happy"? How would we ever know? We don't. It is an idea i find quite fascinating. For all we actually know, we could very well be happy but what is our happy is completely different from the feelings of somebody else when they say they are happy. In fact we have only a very rough definition of what is seen to be happy or sad. We have only vague definitions for so much of human emotion. For example, what exactly is nonchalant? The dictionary tells us that it is: having an air of easy unconcern or indifference. So. How many other states of mind also use this definition. How many emotions are there that we have no words for? How would we ever know? How can we expect to know. Without the ability to see somebody elses emotions, to feel them, with the same depth that they do and yet retain our own sense of awareness and coherent thought, it is sadly, as yet impossible. But then again, what is sadly? What is anything? Nothing is defined. There are no definitions, no safe words, no labels. What's a tree? a woody perennial plant having a single usually elongate main stem generally with few or no branches on its lower part b : a shrub or herb of arborescent form. But that does not define what a tree IS. At it's base level, what is it? Is it a state of mind? A figment of imagination, a sentient object? There are no definitions. And without definitions, what is left? The world is built on definitions, what is left when that is taken away? Questions. Always questions and never answers. What is the world but a state of mind? What is the world but our imaginations? What is our reality and our imaginings? What if our reality is imagined? And our imaginings are reality? What if we do not exist except as a mass of inchorent random thoughts floating around in a void, only occasionally drifting near to the path of correct reasoning? What if everything you had ever believed in was taken away, and everything you thought was true was a lie?
It's hard to convert a vague feeling into words sometimes. Hard to convert thoughts and instincts into something more readily understandable. I guess that's why there is such thing as a proffesional writer, somebody who specialises in finding the precise order and choice of words to portray the exact feeling. Edgar Allen Poe for example. A totally classic poet, and perhaps one of the best at evocing what are perhaps the more base and the darker range of human emotions. Although the actual existence of these states of mind and thought which we call emotions is relatively existential, one can't help but wonder where the definitions of the emotional range of humans are. How exactly do you define the state of mind that we shackle with the single word "sad". It is impossible to define an emotion with such a depth and range. For that matter, how do we know what "sad" is? Surely our experience of the emotion itself ends at our own emotional experience. How is it possible that we can define that the emotion "sadness" is the same for everyone? How can we tell that what we are infact feeling isn't "happy"? How would we ever know? We don't. It is an idea i find quite fascinating. For all we actually know, we could very well be happy but what is our happy is completely different from the feelings of somebody else when they say they are happy. In fact we have only a very rough definition of what is seen to be happy or sad. We have only vague definitions for so much of human emotion. For example, what exactly is nonchalant? The dictionary tells us that it is: having an air of easy unconcern or indifference. So. How many other states of mind also use this definition. How many emotions are there that we have no words for? How would we ever know? How can we expect to know. Without the ability to see somebody elses emotions, to feel them, with the same depth that they do and yet retain our own sense of awareness and coherent thought, it is sadly, as yet impossible. But then again, what is sadly? What is anything? Nothing is defined. There are no definitions, no safe words, no labels. What's a tree? a woody perennial plant having a single usually elongate main stem generally with few or no branches on its lower part b : a shrub or herb of arborescent form. But that does not define what a tree IS. At it's base level, what is it? Is it a state of mind? A figment of imagination, a sentient object? There are no definitions. And without definitions, what is left? The world is built on definitions, what is left when that is taken away? Questions. Always questions and never answers. What is the world but a state of mind? What is the world but our imaginations? What is our reality and our imaginings? What if our reality is imagined? And our imaginings are reality? What if we do not exist except as a mass of inchorent random thoughts floating around in a void, only occasionally drifting near to the path of correct reasoning? What if everything you had ever believed in was taken away, and everything you thought was true was a lie?