Words

Personal meanings

At the time or writing I have just got back from a party that reminded me how much I love my friends. We're all way off what anyone could consider normal and really there's no explanation as to how we all fit together, but we do. As a general rule our conversations start with a kind of awkward phase of people trying to work out what everyone wants to talk about, before descending into an indescribable phase of rambling, tangents and word creation.

Now this got me thinking, after today inventing the word 'puddleskip' I wondered how much of what we say to one another means absolutely nothing to anyone else. Our in-jokes have become so extensive that they now make up the majority of our conversation. For example, a conversation could run like this:

Me: What are you doing?

Laurie*: Feeding Seb's friends

Seb*: But I wanted that

Me: None for you

Seb: All for me

Ozzy*: But did you have exact change?

Seb: Exact change

Laurie: Everyday

Me: Fuduckulous

*All names have been changed to characters from my books

Which of course makes absolute sense to all of us and sounds like the the gibbering of the mentally deranged to anyone passing by (which is quite probably a more accurate description). The simplest moments have become so engrained in our conversation that we will never forget them. I'm sure this is not unique to my friendship group, but it does seem to be a great way to remind each other of the good times.

I suppose the question is: Will I still remember these words in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?
Perhaps not, but I like to think that one day I'll look back - maybe even at this blog post - and I'll see one of these meaningless words and I'll be reminded of these days. Will I even be in contact with anyone else who understands them? I like to think so, but if I'm not, maybe I'll call them up.

One word

As a poet I know that just one word can have the power of a thousand others, that's why I spend so long deciding if I've got the right one. What I have come to realise is that actually, the words which mean most to me usually mean the least to others. Some people's eyes are drawn to different letters or different shapes to mine, which makes my job quite difficult - trying to create something that other people can appreciate, not just me.

You may have seen one of those word-searches on Facebook (or your social media platform of choice) which says something like "Comment the first word you see". While being fairly pointless it can be interesting to see how differently people look at the same jumble of letters, often people comment with words you may not have noticed at all. How accurate as a psychoanalysis test this is remains to be seen, but I know there are certain themes I am drawn to quicker than others. (Rather worryingly a lot of those themes include death and blood...)

Another interesting one is word association, which has been used as a real test of mental state. I know that if someone says to me "shimmer" an image of water is instantly brought to my mind, whereas if someone said "glint" I'd think of something metallic - a car perhaps? Subtle differences between words make a big difference to how people think about what you're saying.

Oh, on a side note, whoever said "a picture is worth a thousand words" clearly didn't realise the wonders you can do with the English language.

Memory

I remember things in images, I remember words by how they look on a page and music by what my hands looked like when I was playing. This means that most of the things I remember, I remember very vividly.

This has its upsides and its downsides.

It's great for remembering diagrams and formulae in school, it's fantastic for recalling details about somewhere I've been and it's perfect for when I've lost something - I just get a clear picture in my head of what I'm looking for and look back at when I last saw it.

Unfortunately, I also have crystal clear memories of my darkest days and nights. I can see the look someone gave me when they told me they hate me, I can visualise every millisecond of my first breakup and don't even get me started on horror films. 

Also, I don't remember spoken instructions anywhere near as well as I remember written instructions (not helpful when, for example, asking for directions). 

I find memory a curious thing, sometimes I try and to explain to myself how it is I am 'seeing' both in my head and in real life at the same time but in the end I give up and just carry on my day. Being so perfectly in two moments at once is rather confusing when you start actually thinking about it. As I type this, I'm hearing me saying the words in my head as they appear on the screen and I have an image of myself walking home back when I had the idea for this blog. How do I do that? I haven't a clue! It really starts to mess with you after a while.

Hive mind

Writing, in a way, is the collective memory of humanity. Everything we put down on paper or into a computer is a unique collection of words that can allow someone else to think what you were thinking when you wrote it. It is what separates us from so many species - we have a (fairly) permanent record of the past that we can build on without having to start all over again.

I like to think that the things I write now will one day help someone understand what life was like for me, or delve deeper into the ideas I rambled on about. In a funny way, a writer never dies, their voice can still be heard hundreds of years later, still passionate or fearful or full of wonder. I suppose that's what keeps me going sometimes - the knowledge that what I care about will be remembered because I wrote it down.

This is why the words "I can't write" bother me so much. Everyone can write! Everyone should write! If for no other reason than to be remembered, write.

I'll leave you with a quote that has filled me with optimism and self-belief every time I see it:

"If you want to write, you can.

Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent.

Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who will listen to me?

You are a human being with a unique story to tell.

You have every right." - Richard Rhodes

Now...to my dreams.

- Parsavagely Hayashi