Friday Pragmatism | Brevity, practice, translation

It’s been a turbulent week. In some ways I’m exhausted, in others inspired. Nevertheless my already irregular sleeping pattern has this week been even more-so, and I am quite tired – not so much physically although there is certainly a natural component to it. Today I don’t feel I have the energy for any kind of lengthy exposition.

I do find myself practicing a lot of things; partly because I often will have practical applications for them such as language, and then also because I simply like to engage certain skills. Almost all of them involve one of the most appealing ideas I’ve ever come across in life which is translation, something I tend to waffle-on about a lot. The way I see certain things, almost everything has a translational process in it, and though it’s not a very complicated idea, I’m still very fond of it and tend to romanticise it at every opportunity. Every action and communication begins as a specific idea in the mind and must be translated into either words or action. This includes even my drum practice where I have the feeling of a rhythm or specific sound in mind, and it gets translated to the actions of my arms and legs to express it.

Practice is a very interesting idea indeed, and my attitude and approach to it has undergone countless transition over the years. The first, solid encounter with practice in life probably comes at learning to walk as an infant, but the task-focussed, pragmatic engagement of it probably really kicks in at school; countless repetitions of actions in order to burn them into memory and to refine execution. In high-school and university it becomes more complex, more arduous, and other activities also employ practice in an integral way, sports, dance and music being some of the easiest and immediate examples that spring to mind.

The thing is that I find myself practicing expression through my writing not only as a writing exercise, but also equally as an emotional exercise. All of my horribly corny (but immensely indulgent and gratifying) romance fiction piece are actually exercises in things like euphoria, lust, trepidation, blind-hope, uncertainty and often (when I remind myself to include it) unexpected things.

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Without saying too much, I often (gladly) encounter people who at least on the surface seem much more intelligent than me. I always love being around these people because I love hearing people knowledgeable and passionate about the subjects they are well versed in. The thing is that many of them seem to have poor communication skills. They speak in fits and starts and often find it difficult for their mouths to keep up with their brains – it’s cute, but often terribly distracting. Good or at least serviceable communication skills are things I’ve always believed should be a priority for people of all walks of life regardless of profession, talent or ability. On a primary level if we ever expect anyone else to do something either for us or to follow a given procedure, we need to be able to communicate that effectively. The great thing is that as we move away from purely practical things, having improved communication skills help us to share abstracts.
One of the greatest forms of communication that I have begun to take not of and practice more and more is non-verbal, and I find that I include it in my writing almost all the time. What is done is as important, sometimes more-so, than what is said, and I try to be as aware as possible of my own non-verbal communication as well as that of others. Jack and I have often discussed the almost dense non-verbal dialect that we have established which is such an integral part of our greater dialect.

There’s more to be said, but I feel I’ve said enough for one day. I do love to practice these things. I was going to go into practicing intimacy, affection and sensuality and go into it with the often used but interestingly insightful joke made by many in regards to sex and having children; “We don’t have kids just yet but we’re practicing.” As corny as that joke is I’ve always found it delightfully amusing, and it’s actually a really wonderful idea; less-so directly related to conceiving, but more to do with practicing physical intimacy and improving it – another layer in not just learning about the actions of sex, but learning about the wonderful facets of sexual partners that cannot be described or discussed in words. I’m very romantic about communication as it is, and I realise I’m romanticising the idea of practice just as much, it being an important component of communication and expression.

How any of this relates to the abstract writing I do, I may struggle to rationalise. It certainly is all a part of it, but when it comes to my abstract writing, that’s an entire world unto itself. It makes very clear sense to me, but I’ve never really been able to explain it in a pragmatic way, and perhaps some of this practice is in the hope of eventually facilitating exactly that. Some part of me still doesn’t exactly want to explain it though; I want peoples’ responses to be natural and raw, and I want someone to come to comprehend it because of their nature; their dense and rich experiences, their agility and evolved perception, with as little guidance, preparation and explanation as possible. You’re just not ever going to get away from this irrational idea of mine to have certain things hidden away behind the highest of barriers and trying to seduce people into climbing them, thus gaining access to the treasures within. We’re all a bit like that, it’s a very natural thing, I just think I’m a little more unreasonable about it than most.