For Introspection, Try Poetry

  • Here we are again, on an airplane, in a word processor. When I tune into my visual field, I'll sometimes feel like 'being there in that moment' feels just like it always has, that there's an indelible sameness between this experience right now and my walk around Lower Haight yesterday and dinner the night before when I brought this up to someone and so on.
  • Reading what I've written, it feels more reified than I want it to. Things feel lighter inside. Ah, a recent tendency! I use 'things' as shorthand for a more cumbersome phrase like-but 'things' also smoothes over places where I don't understand things yet about an experience.
  • When I notice myself using complex syntactic constructions – which, I'll say, feels kinetic like a complicated dance – and I try to simplify, I search around.
  • Writing introspective pieces like this feels ironic in the wrong way because the whole vibe of my internal experience is moving towards looser conceptuality, less need to form words, so much more ease.
  • Loose, airy, in a soft bed under a soft sheet. When I wiggle the sheet moves over me without any friction and I still feel every detail.
  • Writing is an expression of angst?
  • The drinks cart is coming in slow-motion and I've re-concluded four* times now (*estimated) that I should not drink caffeine because falling sleeping tonight without caffeine in my system will probably help me get back to eastern time more quickly.
  • Damn it feels better to be Avery. Even when it's painful it's better – though don't get me wrong, it can be very intense. Intense like air hockey: clocking, slapping, stinging, thrashing, gliding soft no friction.
  • Honest! It feels silly to write, you know? Hm not quite silly, more like – collapsing, more divergent from my 'real experience' than it used to be, and I think that's because these days my real experience has less internal dialogue and less semantic spasticity.
  • I'm not ready to throw in the towel and declare ineffability. Maybe my communication hasn't caught up to my phenomenology.
  • I'll try to point out how the previous sentence feels inauthentic to my experience.
  • 'try to point out'
  • 'inauthentic'... has negative connotation, in different way than I want it to have.
  • Transmuting writing as an account of transmutation.
  • I'm flying home from San Francisco and wanted to write. It's a good feeling, I've had a recent resurgence in 'will to expression', which is a phrase I made up just now to describe a subjective feeling that I semantically label with 'I want to represent internal experience' or 'I want to convey my internal experience' or 'I want to express something'. The feeling itself entails a) feeling 'in my body', and b) the physical sensation of something inside my chest 'wanting' to flow out and forward, and c) decreased conceptuality.
  • I started writing introspective sentences, and it was hard! Before I investigate the challenge, here are some of the sentences.
    • Here we are again, on an airplane, in a word processor. I told someone this week that sometimes I'll gaze out to whatever's in front of me and realize it feels just like it always has, that there's an indelible sameness between this experience right now and my walk around Lower Haight and dinner the night before and, I guess, every moment in my past.

    • Reading what I've written, it feels more reified than I want it to. Things feel lighter inside. Ah, a recent tendency! I use 'things' as shorthand for a more cumbersome phrase like 'a variety of internal experiences now have the subjective qualia of 'lightness', or have that 'lightness' qualia to a greater degree than in the past'. But, 'things' also smoothes over places where I don't understand things yet about myself.

    • When I notice myself using complex syntactic constructions – which, I'll say, feels kinetic like a complicated dance – and I try to simplify, I search around.

    • Introspective pieces like this feel ironic in the wrong way because the whole vibe of my internal experience is moving towards looser conceptuality, less need to form words. I think it's funny that this complaint reads heady but actually it's... the opposite, experientially speaking.

    • Loose, airy, in a soft bed under a soft sheet. When I wiggle the sheet moves over me without any friction and I feel details.

    • Writing is an expression of angst. Writing used to be an expression of angst. What is it now? Is all my expression an expression of angst? Hope not!

    • The drinks cart is moving towards me slowly and I've re-concluded four times now that I should not drink caffeine because sleeping tonight without caffeine in my system will probably help me get back to eastern time more quickly.

    • It feels better to be Avery. Even when painful emotions are there it's better – though don't get me wrong, it can be very intense. Intense like air hockey: clocking, slapping, stinging, thrashing, gliding soft without friction.

    • I'll be honest! It feels silly to write, you know? Hm not quite silly, more like – collapsing, more divergent from my 'real experience' than it used to be, and I think that's because these days my real experience has less internal dialogue and less semantic spasticity.

    • I'm not ready to throw in the towel and declare ineffability. Maybe my communication hasn't caught up to my phenomenology.

    • I'll try to point out how the previous sentence feels inauthentic to my experience.

  • Writing, right now, is oddly disorienting!
  • insight / hypothesis! stream sans caps except ego 'I's. when I engage in tonal commentary like 'oddly disorienting' vs. 'disorienting', I feel like I've written in the wrong tone. an example here, 'wrong tone' feels better than 'inauthentic tone', and 'feels better' feels more accurate than 'feels more authentic', and 'feels' feels better than 'is'. I'm inconclusive whether 'feels better' is better than 'feels more accurate', the former capturing subjective valence and the latter capturing a subjective sensation of alignment, i.e. it feels like two essences are 'aligned' spatially. 'spatially' feels more earnest than 'in a spatial way', more crisp-direct. what if I had italicized 'oddly'? 'this writing experience is oddly disorienting!' when I read the sentence to myself, I micro-smile when I read 'oddly', whereas I micro-frown or micro eyebrow-raise when I read 'oddly'. At first, I wrote, 'I micro-smile "around" oddly' but I have more clarity into the experience than 'around' conveys because 'around' feels pretty spatially diffuse and my experience is pretty spatially focal. 'when I read', on the other hand, at least to my own reading, says 'during the period when I'm visually and subsequently cognitively processing the word 'oddly' rather than surrounding context'. that might be closer to the mark, except that the micro-smile or micro-frown / micro-brow raise is there while reading 'disorienting' because 'oddly' modifies 'disorienting'. look, I know this can't be perfect. it sure can be better, though! meaning, some sentences will be more true-to-experience than others. please assure yourself, ('please' is tonal commentary, I'll spare you! ['I'll spare you' is tonal commentary]), this process does not unfold in realtime. in realtime, it feels authentic and true and direct, less mediated than ever before, and it feels really good! p.s. I made up the phrase 'tonal commentary' because it feels right. it means, 'commentary that imbues tone'.
  • What is the phenomenology of 'feeling right'?
  • For introspection, try writing poetry instead of essays 😊