Here is another thing that happens to all of us but we do not THINK enough about it.
We start talking to someone about a problem they have, and as we talk, they tell us the problem with each bit of advice. At the END of this process, we finally come up with the thing we realize is exactly what we SHOULD have told them at the beginning.
Once again, here is something that happens to all of us, like hearing the Emperor’s Clothes, but we drown that experience in News and Jews and Puppy Dog Tales.
You have just spent half an hour finally realizing exactly what the problem is, and the solution is boiled down to a sentence or two, which you keep repeating lamely at the ends until you can end the talk.
This is what happens to every person who has to learn to write effectively.
I sit down with something buzzing around in my mind and try to express it the way I thought of it. You feel like it’s all worked out but it just won’t come out on paper.
Ever heard anybody say THAT before:
“I had it all worked out but it wouldn’t come out on paper.”
I would bet good money you have heard YOU say that.
The idea worked out beautifully when the images were in your own mind, in the language you use with yourself.
I used to have an idea wonderfully worked out. In fact I had it so clear in my mind that it was a BORE to write it down. It was a BORE, it was WORK to force it onto the paper.
Then something awful happened.
The clear idea I had had in my own mind was no longer something I could see in my mind, where I can hop around in my own images.
I didn’t know where to start. If the concept is in your mind, you have all the exciting running around in your own head, but when you hit the keyboard, it is clunk, clunk, clunk, just one sentence after another.
It becomes WORK, and you get confused and tired. And when you have been forcing yourself back to that damned keyboard over and over and you are exhausted, you might come up , after hours of work, with a sentence that expresses what you really needed at the beginning.
You are exhausted.
You are sick of it.
And you have finally written your first sentence.
#1 by BGLass on 05/17/2011 - 9:09 am
Process is about getting beaten bloody. Either you can’t translate your internal language or it’s about saying it in a way the others can get it, and then if you can finally accomplish that, you have to do something.
Trying to communicate a non-zionist protestant reality can make a person bloodier than just being white, in my experience. Or like in the “anti-war” movements, trying to point out that they are still saying the same conversation as back in Vietnam with all the “we shouldn’t kill people” speeches. “It makes ME the terrorist!”
The other day, a Scandinavian, talking about anti-war, burst out: “But I don’t care about killing!” Of course not. He was from a farm. He would support wars, just not wars that aren’t expressing A PEOPLE. In an idea nation, wars seemed silly, but he did not know how to say so. And also, as a North Euro, killing for spoils seemed stupid (getting them through diplomacy and mental acumen is more the cool thing to do, than just getting blunt about it all).
The whole issue to him, finally, we decided, is taxation. But no Soldier will ever say, “It just is terrible that I, personally, rob people I pretend to be friends with, of proceeds from products they actually created, and polls even say this, which makes me an EXTORTIONIST.
Soldiers would rather see themselves as terrorists than petty extortionists (“I’m the real terrorist! What does being involved in wars make ME!”— is one real truth of “anti-war” movements (where they try to reclaim their own moralism.”
They will never say, “I stole from my own mom! Wonder what my friends could have bought, had they not had to pay for all my stuff? Maybe they would nto have to work 24/7 and they could have a big strapping family or something. Being in the Military, really, sort of puts me on a par with anyone taking Welfare, if you think about it. As a militarist-conservative, I cut down people on Welfare, but hey, we’re all on the public teat here, aren’t we? Gosh, I even think of myself as pro-white, but how can the white tax payer ever have a family, if I keep bleeding my own people dry. The real truth, is I just couldn’t deal with the fast-food job which is all I could get in my town, so I joined. ”
Lol, you will never hear one of them admit they were working some shit job (the story of every real soldier I’ve ever met) and just hated it, or weren’t self-starting enough to do something else, and really, patriotism didn’t even figure in, b/c most of the time, they were listening to loud music and smoking joints or something for fun, and that was their life before they gave it to “patriotism.”
No “anti-war” movement will touch that. It is just about reclaiming a self-concept of moralism.
In fact, the “joining” was the “joining” the moralism of “patriotism,” and now they want to distance themselves but keep the moralism. This should be EVEN MORE embarrassing and spineless, as they —obviously– still cannot come clean, with their real life story, not really.
You have to say a lot of stupid stuff sometimes to get something. People will hate you for it, but you have to do it anyway.
And if you ever really do come up with something, you will never get credit for it. Ever. It takes trash bags of paper to come up with a word.
#2 by BGLass on 05/17/2011 - 9:48 am
Also, the process of thinking can make you go off topic, which sometimes winds up not really being off topic, and the world of “forums” hates this and it’s seen as impolite. There is no greater sin than off topic: “hi-jacking.” Totally ignore this. Leave it to others to ban you; never ban yourself.
#3 by BGLass on 05/17/2011 - 9:56 am
That was the other thing the guy was trying to say: “carpet bombing is just embarrassing.” —B/c It’s a sign of lack of intelligence, and he didn’t want to be associated with being stupid, even though some other war, and a war that looked smarter, (and they he didn’t have to pay for if he didn’t want to), would be fine.
#4 by Dave on 05/17/2011 - 11:12 am
Truman Capote, who was an excellent Mantra thinker, used to say, “I have five perceptions for every ordinary person’s one perception”.
But paradoxically, this led to simplicity.
I always notice this in very intelligent people. Their deductions and inferences are “more simple” than everybody else. How they respond is always simplicity itself.
You have to remember that intelligence is a “doing” thing. It is an action thing, a “how to appropriately respond” thing. Intelligence is a verb, not a noun.
Truly intelligent people focus on the obvious. Not just what is obvious, but what is so obvious and immediate, nobody else sees it, just as the Mantra has it.
Capote was a journalist of the first order. He wasn’t saddled with having to rewrite. It came out right on the first try.
#5 by OldBlighty on 05/18/2011 - 5:48 am
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Arthur Schopenhauer
#6 by Dick_Whitman on 05/17/2011 - 7:37 pm
“Once again, here is something that happens to all of us, like hearing the Emperor’s Clothes, but we drown that experience in News and Jews and Puppy Dog Tales.” (Bob)
See “Puppy Dog Tales” intro on video below. It’s about a minute long and worth taking a look at.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhSv6Ep09rg