Verbal and non verbal thought
Nowadays I have no more people with which I can communicate in my mother language, so I make my verbalized thinking directly in English to poor it in WP. Also when I am non on the PC I mostly think in English. All I read, in paper or in the Web, is in English.
But there is the non verbalized thought, much faster and much clearer even if sometimes difficult to translate in words. There should be a much more versatile tool than the existing languages to put into it all what you think. At some point you give up communicative language, too clumsy and time consuming and you start using only or mainly this shorthand that is non verbal thought. This happens all the more as you lose gradually all your incarnated addressees. We live alone (we here live mostly alone, and when we communicate verbally we often express ourselves in a corrupted language, corrupted by falsity, by the desire to please (or to offend) the others you face. If you are scared of people you turn, diplomatic, conventional, polite, you become, as T.S.Eliot says:
“an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.”
So a vicious circle take place: you proceed on your road of not verbalized thought and given the much greater versatility and fastness of non verbal thought you build huge castles of thought all for yourself.
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Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
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DaQwerk
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Joined: 1 May 2007
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[quote=
“an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.”
Well this describes me to a T. I always liked the
term "tool". Now I know why...I am one! LOL
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And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds longs to play with your hair
Kahil Gibran
What gave me the illumination about tht quality of my life has been a story of Davis Foster Wallace ("Good Old Neon" in Oblivion) which starts this way: "My whole life I've been a fraud...Pretty much all I 've ever done all the time is try to create a certain impresssion of me in other people, Mostly to be liked or admired." Of course if this is what drives to communicate with others, all you say is phoney, inauthenthic. On the other side if you make the choice of non verbal thought, this shorthand allows you to reach great layers of understanding, though incommunicable.
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Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
--Samuel Beckett
i_Am_andaJoy
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Joined: 27 Sep 2007
Age: 46
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,268
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do i dare and do i dare time to turn back and descend the stair with a bald spot in the middle of my hair they will say how his hair is growing thin...
this is my favorite poem ever ever ever and i memorized J. Alfred Prufrock and his love song 12 years ago, and i use it like a stim, to sooth me as i walk and walk and rant him to myself and whisper back to t. s. eliot across time and age and space... p.s. eliot, i love you back.
DO i dare to eat a peach? the mermaids never used to sing to me, but now, most days they do. at least a little. because i am done. DONE i say! done measuring out my life with coffee spoons and when i am either fixated or sprawling on a pin or pinned and wriggling against the wall it is still uncomfortable, but i so like my nerves thrown in patterns on a screen...
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www.asaspiepie.blogspot.com
Even in his lowest swoop, the mountain eagle is still higher than the other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. --Herman Melville
This is an absolutely beautiful thread. The quotes are gorgeous and make me think I need/want to look at Eliot again. In the light of aspergers.
And also wondered whether the non-verbal communication might sometimes mean simply wanting to exchange lists and lists of titles of books and films, because they mean more than any words could say.
Do aspies do this a lot?? Use names of films etc to talk? I know I do, IF someone knows enough of the same shorthand.
Thanks all for the quotes.
I was just now reading Last Days of Humankind by Karl Kraus which in a huge vomiting of pages, part Kraus’ invectives, part quotations of papers and official speeches and propaganda conceived in WW1, gives an idea of a massacre started with the Napoleonic wars and perpetuating itself in WW2 in Vietnam, in Africa. Same vomiting in Celine’s Voyage au but de la Nuit. How to grasp by verbal thought the horror? One can only vomit invectives or reach some overall perception of the history of a century, nothing that cannot be rendered in a well composed arrangement of words. No words possible, you can only keep in your mid the whimpering, but also the banging, of billions of people all trapped in the same vortex of folly.
Sometimes I think that in fact if place total faith in the capacity of verbal thought to reveal or find truth then in fact what one finds is hell. Or a lie. Othertimes I think that that IS human existence , hell created by language ( verbal thought) and just need to accept it.
But I believe that an over reliance on or over sensitivity to , or something out of proportion about ones use/perception of verbal language ,is at the root of the most seductive and destructive alienations. Making word = god , so rather than mere tool it becomes an authority with law of its own which has to be followed.
Is this kind of relationship ( over-respect , fear, faith?)to the word particularly common amongst aspergers, or are aspies in fact amongst the people most sensitive to the violences that verbal language can work?
i_Am_andaJoy
Supporting Member

Joined: 27 Sep 2007
Age: 46
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,268
Location: Ocala, FL
But I believe that an over reliance on or over sensitivity to , or something out of proportion about ones use/perception of verbal language ,is at the root of the most seductive and destructive alienations. Making word = god , so rather than mere tool it becomes an authority with law of its own which has to be followed.
Is this kind of relationship ( over-respect , fear, faith?)to the word particularly common amongst aspergers, or are aspies in fact amongst the people most sensitive to the violences that verbal language can work?
yes. i have always been verbs. but got lost in the singular facet of verbal expression for too long.
but now the light has caught the jewel just right and splintered the rest of the gem into glory again.
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www.asaspiepie.blogspot.com
Even in his lowest swoop, the mountain eagle is still higher than the other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. --Herman Melville
i_Am_andaJoy
Supporting Member

Joined: 27 Sep 2007
Age: 46
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,268
Location: Ocala, FL
no more fight-club, the tone i heard the book- now fight-club, the tone i saw the movie.
sell me something! sell me! i want to buy some more JOY today! but i have some for sale too. it costs a gabillion zero dollars, and so watch Amelie!
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www.asaspiepie.blogspot.com
Even in his lowest swoop, the mountain eagle is still higher than the other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. --Herman Melville