Emotional Thought

Say you have a brother: He is lying on a bed in the hospital in a coma. He is wearing nothing, but has a blanket covering his body. He doesn’t move. He cannot breath. You wonder what was wrong- exactly what was wrong. You compare his appearance now to that of the previous morning. Inventory is taken of every bump and threatening scrape on the visible skin. Undoubtedly, you would think everything thought related to your brother. The thoughts may be analytical, emotional, hypothetical, and so on. These thoughts cause you to feel. The thoughts and feelings tangle and mesh so that they are the same. Sometimes you cry when you think thoughts. You cry because you are human, and you can’t help it.

We think of human’s pursuit for knowledge as a blood-splattered battle for power, but there is another, purer, side to it. Complex ideas often run parallel to reality within the human mind. This helps us to make sense of non-literal thoughts and feelings. As humans, we have the unique ability to take up the physical world into our brains and add meaning to it. In this way, we add significance and depth to our lives.

Shlain talked about the transformation of the aleph-beth away from the original significance and into a tool that humans use in a way that further separates us from the natural world. I agree with Shlain that this has helped propelled us away from our original roots in the natural earth, which is a great shame for both our species and all the rest. However, it is also true that this evolution of writing has given us the ability to relate our many thoughts. Thoughts that help us combine our emotion with factual reality, a facet of our brain that is unique and separate from all other animals.