I was a curious and excitable child, quiet but intense. I’m still that little kid; I hear something cool and burst with energy to tell someone about it. Its a good thing that I have these outlets on the Internet to report back on what I’ve learned. Maybe you’re reading this looking for similar discoveries.
As much as I see, I imagine that there must be even more. What I’m looking for may or may not exist. I have no real idea of the question. I have vague thoughts and conceptions that I can just imagine but can’t express.
All my life I’ve marveled at how the brain provides us with this rich internal experience. How do we become these infinitely varied and unique individuals? Our brains all look the same and work the same, but each of us is a complete universe looking out from behind a pair of eyes. I’ve learned from great thinkers like William James and John Searles. Years have been spent in concentrated and focused pursuit of answers. I’m an amateur. I know they learned things I need to know. Some of what I’ve read and understood, I agree with. Some common mistakes arise again and again.
When I read, I’m in dialog. I imagine I have something important to add to the conversation. The problem is that my thoughts are not yet fully formed. I see connections and possibilities that are easily dismissed. Uncertainty, free will and cognitive neuroscience combine in a stew, flavoring each other but not yet agreeing to be one.
Annie Dillard asked “Why do you never find anything written about that idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands? Because it is up to you. There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.”
I don’t write to curate my personal “brand”. I have a really good job at a great company. It pays me well to do things that I continue to be enthusiastic about even decades into my career as a Neurologist and drug developer. I almost never write about such things here. I’ve tried a few times, but it feels like work. I already know what I think and crafting the writing is not rewarding. If anything I confuse the world by having an online presence focused not on science but on art.
I do write at work to support and build the business. I take notes at meetings to assimilate and synthesize what I’ve heard. My scholarly output has a few highlights over the years: the vulnerability of neurons to injury demonstrated in the dish, the biological relevance of NAAG and GCP II, the development of a water soluble prodrug of propofol. I’ve done a lot of different things professionally and I don’t expect that I’m done yet.
The business writing is public. Those words have been set out to perform a task for me to talk to my collegues or my company’s customers. Drug development is an expensive, complicated undertaking and I contribute from my fund of knowledge or experience. Generally once I’ve organized my thoughts, the process of structuring prose and constructing arguments is straightfoward. Prose can be polished and tightened, but all to the end of expression and communication.
All art is secret. It springs from personal need and private thought. Eventually I put this grasping into physical form in words or image as search for what I believe I must know but can’t yet express.
Once I think I’ve crystalized that elusive idea, the writing is a test. In order to prove that I’ve really assembled the notion, the only way I can be sure that it’s real is to write it down and get it clear. Certainly if I find the words wandering and fighting me, I have to concede that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
A long time ago, I came up with the revision strategy of reading a confused paragraph and saying to myself, “What am I trying to say here?” Sometime’s I’ll get up, walk around and speak it out, the act of forming the words driving the idea into reality. If I can’t say it, I haven’t created the thought yet.
It may turn out that I have nothing to say. That unformed idea may be just confusion made of crossed wires and misperception. I may be lacking the insight to be seeing this old world in a new way. My insight may be cliched or simply obvious.
Worst is when my words fail to communicate the ideas. If I’m misunderstood or misinterpreted, I’ve failed. I have to allow that you may see the world differently. You’ll bring your own experiences and mental models. Art needs ambiguity to allow others to enter where the creator has been. When I experience art, I want to feel like the artist is speaking to me and inviting me to join.
All art is public and its ultimate test is truth. Art needs to work in the world. Why does that excited kid that puts his art into the world? To test its truth. I want to know whether I’m making sense. If my writing is dismissed, ignored or argued with, then I’ll have to conclude that it doesn’t contain enough truth because it doesn’t work for anybody else. You may not read what I meant to say, but if it says what you want then I’ve succeeded.
These worlds go out to you as a validation. These ideas on deciding seem to help me understand myself and my relationship to the world. But I’ll be more sure that I’ve gotten it right if you read this and at least nod or smile with me. I’ll feel even better if you stop reading here and start putting your own ideas down so that I can share your astonishment with the world, with yourself, with me.