PROFOUND WORDS

My very good friend, Steve Boiseman (a very talented writer) just sent me this. It made the hairs on my neck prickle. I wanted to share.

What I Know

By

Steve Boiseman


What I know is an illusion.

My reality is the result of my limited senses; sight, sound, touch, smell, kinesics and the filtering carried out by the countless nerves that carry electrochemical signals from those sensory receptors to my brain, where in turn, millions of neuro-transmitters jump the synaptic abyss and in concert create my perceptual world.

The impression I have as a result … consciousness … is so far removed from the original energies of the electromagnetic spectrum, the pulsing of the air, the pressure on my fingertips, the random chemicals flowing into my nostrils and even the tilt of my head, in fact, so altered from their original form, that it is a leap of faith that I take anything at all for granted.

Then, as if this is not enough, that suspect perceptual world is interpreted by my memories, structured by language and assessed as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ by the values assigned by my experience.

It seems I am an explorer in a world of illusion. That the illusion remains constant, from one moment to the next, one minute to the next, one day, one year to the next, is testimony to the robustness of my perceptual systems.

An intriguing aspect of my consciousness, this illusion, is my ‘self talk’, the running commentary I have on my life that plays continually inside my head. Others tell me they have ‘self talk’ too, though what they say to themselves is often remarkably different in tone from mine.

It seems that this ‘self talk’ is the means by which I make ‘sense’ of what my illusory universe is about, it seems as if I am making up the story of my own life. My ‘self talk’, an illusion in itself, in fact becomes my memory.

I am, it seems, the author of my own story.

I have interacted with enough people to know that their perceptual world isn’t quite like mine. Our respective perceptions differ, sometimes on minor points, sometimes on major issues.

Thus I ‘know’ my perceptual world is unique.

It follows that the world’s six billion humans each have such a unique perceptual world. Yet these six billion universes overlap enough so we can live and work together, build cities, fly to the moon, see the sky and call it blue, this, I think, is one of the most remarkable things I know.

It seems to me that this commonality and separateness of individual perceptual universes lends itself to the story teller as a useful tool, but one, like all tools, that requires discipline and precise application.

The words of a story, either spoken or written, will at the same time evoke different yet similar perceptions in the minds of whoever listens or reads them.

For example, the use of just a few words will evoke images or memories of a storm tossed sea, the smell of a newly mown lawn or even the electric brush of lips in a hesitant first kiss.

The listener or reader will perceive the words and then interpret them within the boundaries of their own illusory universe.

This makes the act of listening and reading such a personal and ultimately unique experience. The story teller provides a few cues, a very few, to which the reader attaches their own unique perceptions and memories, and will fill in the gaps of narrative so that not everything has to be said, or written.

Unlike a computer program where everything must be spelled out in tedious detail otherwise the program will not run successfully, the reader’s mind is equipped with all the software required to create the story for themselves.

And this is where strict discipline is required in the author. The specific words used by the writer is of paramount importance. While the reader will make the story up as they go, the writer wants all his (or her) readers to have their unique stories going in the same general direction, to follow the plot to its climax, its theme coherent and apparent, though subtly different, to all.

So, story telling is a matter of balance. The words chosen must be evocative to keep the story interesting, yet solid to keep everyone together, loose, to give the reader freedom, yet tight to maintain the flow of the plot.

Attaining that balance, I think, is what makes good writing extremely hard. Rather, I don’t think good writing is extremely hard, I know.