2024 - 004 Musing | The Incompleteness of My Ideas
I thought I have a perfect example of an idea sex to share. That instant when two unrelated ideas meet and reproduce an entirely new thing. Idea sex is simply the word synthesis but I’ll stick with idea sex because it sounds more fun and easier to imagine. I first heard of the term idea sex from Matt Ridley. He has a TED Talk about it. In some future essays I will write more about this.
Looking back, what really happened was an iteration of ideas--n idea meeting a new idea. It is like a game character discovering a new room in the same dungeon.
Quoting My Favorite People is Me Lowkey Simping
I love quotes.
The two criteria for my quote collection are: insight and arrangement of words. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive. If a quote encapsulates wisdom, or explains the human condition, it will go straight to my repository. If a line is something I wish I have written, then I will steal it too. And Joan Didion have this exquisite paragraph which satisfy both of my conditions. It is also a paragraph that includes two things that always perk me up every time I hear or read them: identities and memories.
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.”
As someone who aspires to write well and tell good prose, this is a gem. It’s the perfect example. I made an effort to quote it any chance I have because Joan Didion is so cool and smart, and maybe people will find me cool and smart too. THEN I heard the writer Mark Manson talked to André Duqum about the naivety we exhibit every time we pursue a new personal development goal e.g. a new habit, a new skill, a new image, etc..
“...for a real fundamental identity level shift to happen, it's not sufficient to simply adopt something new into your identity. You also have to kill off something old. And when you kill off that old part of yourself, there's a grieving process that you go through.”
Damn. I was so focused simping my literary superheroes, hoping their coolness will rub off on me every time I quote them that I forgot the fundamental drive why I read and I write.
I never once contemplated how and why did Didion come up with the observation that some identities were amiable, while others were indignant. And now I’m pulled back to Earth. I’m finally wondering how do I grieve for an old iteration of me? How can I avoid keeping poltergeist as pet (to quote the Filipina poet Rina Caparras), or maybe at least make peace with them?
These questions are probably better answered in an essay with self-help as a main subject.
The Incompleteness of My Ideas
The writer James Baldwin was once interviewed and asked what increases with knowledge. To which he replied: You learn how little you know.
This is something I have to be reminded over and over again until I die. I have to be careful to not confound simping for a fraction of comprehension. Smugness is the enemy.
Ignorance, like being gay and growing up poor, has been a prominent feature of my life. I’m not saying this in a way that claims it’s an experience unique to me. Like memories and identities, I’m just fascinated with nature of ignorance. Because with ignorance also comes along my favorite word curiousity, learning, knowledge, and wisdom.
It is true that I wished many insights had sailed into my harbor when I was 17 and not when I was 40 years of age. Pieces of information that perhaps could make life easier. Raw materials that could be great scaffold to make the right judgement in creating this life.
Anyway, this is life Dave, you live, you learn.
Notes & References:
- Book - Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
- Video - Where Self Help Fails - Mark Manson on Know Thyself Podcast by André Duqum.
- Article -The Art of Fiction No 78 - James Baldwin on The Paris Review.