Writing practice: just tell a story
[i’ve been in a bit of a funk the last few days, but i need to do this. i spent half my writing time today purging my mind and aligning my thoughts by reading more of the count of monte cristo, but i need to get something down here]
[ok, maybe this won’t be a story]
We live in a rational universe, on a rational planet. It is made of atoms, organized as humans, rocks, trees, etc. Things happen for a reason, and they happen consistently – rocks don’t spontaneously become humans, and humans don’t spontaneously become trees. We organize matter according to the principals of matter – sometimes by physical reconfiguration, sometimes by chemical reconfiguration, sometimes by nuclear reconfiguration.
But our minds don’t occupy an existence of physical matter – it occupies a world of concepts, ideas, imaginings. These are electrochemical impulses in the brain, and by some process they form consciousness capable of forming thoughts.
But the world of thoughts isn’t real, except to the extent that the electrochemical impulses are real. A mental image of a tree is not a tree, a mental concept of two plus two equaling four is not real, and neither are the thoughts we have about social and political structures, engineering and the sciences, and the most efficient way to cultivate crops.
For the most, it’s much easier to change our thoughts than to change reality. Except, however, when we have a strong enough reason not to change our thoughts, then it’s nearly impossible. But nevertheless, when we change our thoughts (or not), we are not changing reality nor keeping it the same. The ones have no bearing on the other.
But man cannot live without his concepts – that would be impossible for a nonthinking human to exist outside the intensive care unit of a hospital. So we create this artificial world in our minds which is absolutely necessary for our survival. However, we have the capacity to choose how much in accordance we allow our thoughts to exist with reality, to the extent we can observe reality.
It’s also true that what we put into our minds affects our thoughts, and how we understand reality is greatly affected by what information we receive or choose to expose ourselves to, because man doesn’t have an automatic capacity for observing and understanding reality. And, because so much of our understanding comes not from direct experience, but from concepts, we in a way are at the mercy of the concepts we allow into our minds. And on the concepts we focus on in our minds.
And so much of our processing of information is filtered through a mental screen that asks, “How does this information affect me, and how do I want this information to affect me?” And this filter can really damage our ability to properly observe reality [don’t split the infinitive – to observe reality properly], because we often choose an interpretation of reality based on our perceived best interests, and/or communicate an interpretation based on these perceived best interests.
And the problem is there’s no objective source of correct concepts to interpret reality, so we often decide what we want to believe based on our perceived best interests. And, if what we believe is inconsistent with reality, then we sometimes try to fake reality to eliminate the contradictions that we don’t want to acknowledge.
For some, there might be a (cynical) belief that if you can control people’s concepts and perceptions of reality, then that *changes* reality. Of course this isn’t the case, and the less naive recognize this and sometimes even try to punish those who disagree. It’s like people are dipoles and leader want to magnetize them, and they really resent people who say, “That magnetizing force is wrong and will hurt you, and here’s why.”
Because humans can, in some ways, greatly change the environment, certain people want to organize them into groups that can create certain change. Sometimes the people are inspired, sometimes they are paid, sometimes they are threatened or coerced, and usually it’s some combination of all.
Like in The Count of Monte Cristo. Certain characters conspired against Dantes and he paid the price. They altered others’ perceptions of reality to create a (perceived) benefit for themselves. When you try to fake reality, someone has to pay, even if it’s only yourself. But reality doesn’t bend to thoughts. But somebody always pays. There’s of course a cost to recognize reality – the effort to observe and form mental concepts, perhaps experimentation and discussion, etc. But there’s also a cost to fake reality – it’s just a matter of who pays.
People say and do things for reasons – often these reasons are explicitly known, but sometimes only implicit. But almost always, those reasons are because the actions somehow benefit the individuals taking them. So in trying to understand actions, it might be helpful to try to understand how the action could benefit a person, and then work backwards to try to understand why a certain person took that action. And it might usually be the case that the benefit, while often physical and based in reality, is fundamentally one psychological in nature. Psychology is at the root of probably all human action.
[anyway, not a story today, but just had to sort through some thoughts. maybe tomorrow]