Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Oh, You Know, Form

I'm very upset
In the happiest way.
I'll do anything I can
To keep my life at bay.

I think about form sometimes. I was telling a friend about how I think of my writing and of my emotions. I think they change one another. I think it changes me.

What is it that I call fiction, or poetry, or 'creative nonfiction'? I wonder about these forms. About the difference between pure expression and expression as altered by form.

What I mean is best summed up some questions: if you express a certain emotion, 'a particular feeling', through a song, and through a poem, both of which supposedly express the same thing, are you really expressing the same emotion? Is it possible to express the exact same thing through two different forms? Does the form of expression inherently change the feeling that is expressed?

I don't know. But my hunch is this: the form always modifies the feeling that is expressed. You can't express the same thing in two different forms. Because the thing that is expressed is modified by the form that you use to express it.

I could never express this exact thought in the same way, in a conversation. I couldn't only express it in this way in a blog document, on 12/21/10 at 12:20am.

Is time itself a form? It is undoubtedly a parameter of form. But a form itself? Certainly not?

Do I believe what I just said?

Certainly not.

What is thinking and what is believing?

Sleep.

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About Me

I spend most of my time working as a mental health professional. I have been preoccupied with philosophy, politics, healing, and many other questions for the last 15 years or so. I am currently working on putting together my study of Plato and Aristotle with contemporary work in philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, and trauma research. I use this place primarily as a workshop for ideas. I welcome conversation with anyone working on similar problems. The major contours of my basic project have been outlined here

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