As I boy I came across stories or ideas in comic books, tv, movies (and often) in music and I thought ‘Gee I wish I thought of that’ - there were even times I felt a part of the idea or that part of the idea was actually mine.
I still get these feelings.
Odds are they have more to do with admiration (or envy) than something metaphysical and that’s ok. As a man I can live with ideas of mine in good, mediocre or otherwise in various states of completion or repair. The careful writer learns to see where they are (if not always) what they are in the course of working.
But as reader, observer, fan…call it whatever…one needs to learn what to make of things they come across that remind them of their own work…especially if they are sure that somehow they thought of it first or have the right angle on it.
Finding resonance of one’s work in other things around them is exhilarating and scary at the same time. When it happens to me I feel as if I am on the right path and a hack at the same time.
I’m sure this is not a new phenomena. Thoughtful discussion of this resonance, if that’s the right word, can be found as recently as Nietzsche’s Gay Science
NOT THAT YOU SICK BASTARDS
….and certainly the topic is touched on by the ancients in their writings on friendship and the point of philosophers communicating,
My part in the story is small compared to something like Aristotle’ discussion of the Platonists at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics and what it means to be philosophic “friends”
- but part of what I have learned is that this resonance (or wisdom, if it is that) is not social learning or social growth but at the same time, this kind of learning is impossible without society.
When people (friends or otherwise) talk about computers, personal web pages and new forms of communication, inevitably the conversation turns to ’what does this mean for society as a whole' or 'where are we as a people?'
I think that conversation has it part right. Something in our social interaction changes with the machine or the way we communicate through our personal machines or the types of information we consider one on top of the other via our machines…
But whatever social vector their might be seems to be irrelevant or has nothing to do with me or, maybe put with more humility - is not for fucking me to say eh.
The exposure to ideas, art and especially music through my machine tweaks me as an individual in ways that I am beginning to perceive. It does not produce a crucible in which I can measure exactly how far I have come or what I am made of…but the way I pursue information through the computer and points of contact I have on the machine help (if I look at them honestly) provide context.
If we are honest with ourselves we all want to try and place ourselves, our lives in the proper context in the hopes of making sense of it all.
Back to Aristotle (or as Aquinas calls him - “the Philosopher”) A says all men seek to know or all me want for or lack wisdom.
The same may be said for context and when we can get it, even if it leads us to see that some of our precious ideas are treading the same water as other stuff we are changed (I think) for the better in having that backdrop against which we can measure ourselves.
More later if I can make sense of it all.
