Vicious circle

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When I used to teach I was forced to maintain some character of communicability in the development of what I thought. This was good and bad at the same time. My lessons were horrible anyway, but had some good effect on me if not on my students (always very few unfortunate people). It put bridles on me, I was not allowed to drown in some kind of shorthand thinking. I realized that sometime I should have to verbalize what I thought, to communicate the results of my “work”, of my analyses. Now that I have not to talk to students, nor to friends (I don’t have any now). I let my thinking gallop, no more need to communicate or to convince someone. This in turn leaves me with the fact or the illusion to be extremely clear minded and a somehow a seer. Being free of any shackles of communicability I dare much in my mind processes. The posts here have still some semblance of plausibility, and perhaps force me to maintain some tie with common understanding. But, apart from this, I plunge in chains of thoughts at stellar distance from where people are use to thread. This insulates me further and pushes me further in a solipsistic way of thinking. I might end up like a chap who (near where I live)was so convinced of having reached some sort of superhuman truth that he went totally mad.

I have to add that I was never structured in what I said or wrote. I skipped important passages, not caring that listeners or readers had to reconstruct these passages by themselves, somehow in a telepathic or magic way. I am quite convinced that this hade (has) to do with my being autistic.

probably

I think I understand where you're coming from with this, Paolo. If I don't talk much to other people I seem to lose the ability to communicate in any coherent way. Just posting here a little helps me to gather my thoughts so they are not quite so free-floating, but sometimes it's a real effort! Reading also helps and functions as a model of how it is done. Do you find that when you are thinking to yourself your thoughts are not sentences, rather they are impressions, images, perhaps a few words? That is what I experience. Words I find an effort. I've always attributed it to being autistic.

I don't have a problem with letting my brain gallop. (Like I can stop it? How?) Agreed damn near impossible to get it spoken or even written down, a lot of times, most times, it can be so choppy. It tends to be how I think, a little from there and a little from here, a little thrown away, something examined and moved to the side but still influences the thoughts. And yes, perhaps something completely new, rare but once in a while. It's a symphony at work, only not all the music is pleasant to others or even me at times. It's music and my style won't be another's. I envy those that are able to hear the music, the symphony and let it flow from the fingers, the voice. It isn't me or it isn't me yet and how will I know until I get there or try? I may never, but I heard a music and to me it was good.

I have said it before, it is a fairly recent advent that I can write or what passes as somewhat normal writing. Others may have had problems with speaking words here. That wasn't me. I could not get the thoughts on paper, the brain galloped too fast. It still doesn't come very close to anything that is in the head, but it's somewhat better.

Mad, such a subjective term. But is he right? How many have been called mad? Point taken, he wouldn't have gotten into trouble if he hadn't spoke. I can't get it out most times anyway, so I'm not worried.

Yes posting here helps a little.

First there is a kind of flash, a sudden illumination on some matter. Then you want to verify it, you need to convince someone, in order, if anything, to feel less alone and you look for words and sentences. But this is a translation. First you have in your mind some picture of “reality”, in the shorthand of thought. Then you translate this into words and here is the difficulty. Thoughts are all mixed and tangled. How to give communicable coherence to your picture without adulterating the picture, without omissions, without shortcuts? You reached some conclusions out a very complex itinerary. You must choose what is communicable of that itinerary, what is important and what may (or must?) be left out.

And you think because you find yourself drowning in anxiety. Without a deep anxiety about the ultimate meaning of life you would only do something practical without reflecting.

I ran across a quote and if I were lucky I might be able to remember the chapter in this book and then find it to give credit to the author, but I'm not going to search it out. I like it and have since I read it.

"A thought spoken is a lie."

I just googled it. But from the entire passage of Dostojevski it seems that the sentence is in turn a quotation:

"It’s certainly true that reality is deeper than any human imagination, than any fantasy. For all the seeming simplicity of phenomena, it is a dreadful riddle…Nothing in reality is completed, just as it is impossible to find a beginning- everything flows an everything is, but you can’t lay hold of anything. And what you lay hold of, comprehend, mark with a word, at one becomes a lie. 'a thought spoken is a lie' ." (quotation marks).

This is a very interesting thread. So, once we speak the thought is unable to move, is fixed, pinned down, carved in stone. But tomorrow we may have changed our view a little, moved it along, or completely flipped it on its head. But yesterday's thoughts were put into the world, as though they were truths, our small view of what appeared real at the moment. It is a wonder anyone speaks, with a thought being a pro tempore "reality" It seems a very courageous thing to do then, speaking.

The more you are unsatisfied of the relationships the more you are demanding. How to express your need, your hunger? Normally you just turn away from people, thinking that this is a clear message. But of course it is not, so people drop you and give less and less. At the end you find yourself in your little isle, surrounded by oceans waiting for some vessel appearing on the horizon. And it must not be a ship sailing there by chance. It has to be a whole expeditionary force sent expressly for your rescue. That’s madness of course, but it’s the way you live.