A Markov Chain of Ideas
This blank page has no soul. But when I put these words on it, it springs to life. It talks to you--yes you, dear reader. Suddenly I am here and you are there and there's this conversation flowing between us.
How remarkably wonderful is that? How did it arise, this illusion of a person here talking to you in your head? It is simply the miracle of reading and writing--skills which were not passed down by our genes but acquired, painstakingly through years of training.
But I'm not going to write about these skills today, which Maryanne Wolf did a good job in expounding in Proust and the Squid. I gained a much better understanding of dyslexia from the book, which makes me feel appreciative of the reading skill that I have. And that gratitude is felt every time I open a book to read, allowing that miracle of images and sound to appear in my head.
From black marks on a blank page to beautiful vistas and dramatic speeches require the brain to integrate processing from many its different regions. Neural connections are forged during those years of learning, allowing the mere sight of a line of Wordsworth to bring back the sunshine and trees of my childhood.
When I write these words, I trigger something in you. But where do I end and you begin? If you meet me in a cafe, I am a person, sitting at a table in the corner with a pot of Earl Grey, typing on a laptop. You could be sitting at another table across and there's a clear boundary between us. I am here and you are there.
But when you are reading what I write, we are one. My thoughts and yours mingle. Something new arises in your brain; if you and I are in the same cafe, we could sit together and have a conversation. As a monk once told me: the teacher and the student creates the teaching. When to persons exchange thoughts, they are also creating something from the synthesis of ideas. For a moment, we share a collective brain. And when we end our conversation, we are better off because new neural connections would have sprouted in each of our brains.
A relationship is an emergent property, created from the interplay of thoughts between individuals. The writer and reader has a relationship. Right now, I write as if there's a reader. There could be none. But that doesn't matter. The whole point of writing is to put your brain into a communication mode. By writing to an imaginary reader, I set up the dynamic for the act of creation to happen. In the process, I am changed. Thoughts fall into place, because I am forced to convey them clearly to others.
I end each session of writing with insight and gratitude. Insight from the labour of shaping of words into ideas and I am better off because of it. The next article in this blog will be influenced by what I write today--it is simply a growing Markov chain of ideas and long may it continue!
