4b (same day)

Things die.  It's a simple matter of fact that things die, and thoughts are things of a kind.  All those thoughts that flower and bloom and then fade, without ever having been uttered aloud (or, uh, you know:   plucked).  It seems a shame (so says the natural hoarder in me), and maybe it is, but that's not to say that all thoughts should be uttered, never mind recorded for posterity (pressed flat in the pages of a  -... you know what?  I'm going to give that metaphor a rest now, I think).  However, I have been pacing the room after writing my last entry, and thinking, and it seems sad that what I was thinking may be lost, even as the thoughts slip away from me now, this very moment.  There's the crux.  The conceited, self-important crux.

I was reading a book, in which a character described the sorry state of affairs when ennui is thought of as the 'healthy norm'.  While I was reading this a thought entered into my head (not so much popping as sidling), and lingered there for a page or two before leaving.  By the start of the next chapter I had forgotten what the thought actually was, remembering only that it had to do with writing.  It was in the attempt to retrace my steps (via rereading the pages I'd just read, and indulging in word association) that I arrived at the thoughts and ideas in the last blog entry.  But I'm not sure these thoughts were the same as the thought I'd had when initially reading.  So again I retraced my steps, and again ended up with the conclusion that writing and thought are to some extent the same.  Not identical, of course, but that...  Well, I've already covered this.

Pacing the room, I extemporised on the subject at length, and with great eloquence, to a nonexistent audience.  

Is it vanity after all?

I once heard blogging, amateur poetry and prose, and such like, summarised in these terms: 'Here are the contents of my head:  Raaaaaaaaaarrrrggghh!'

It's true, but it's perhaps also vanity and hypocrisy to assume that only the skilled have a right to express themselves. 

I may have come to the conclusion that writing and thinking are intrinsically linked, but by no means do I feel everyone else agrees with me.  The self importance of emptying the contents of your head into the public domain.  Well, here I am, attempting a crude transcription of thoughts I had barely ten minutes ago.  A crude transcription which, by its nature, is in opposition to my new understanding of my writing as being more than mere transcription.  The transcription is here, nonetheless, and certainly crude, as my memory fails me.  Suffice to say (it really doesn't, but I am forced to pretend), that in the thinking of something more than mere transcription, I was led via such thoughts towards a desire to transcribe.  The essence of the transcription is gone, I think.  The flow certainly is.  But let me say (and how are you going to stop me?), that things die; that thoughts left unspoken (or unwritten) are no less valuable, though far lonelier, than the last recorded full stop.

Should thoughts, by mere virtue of being thoughts, be preserved?  

No, of course not, but only if the thought is preserved can we ascertain if it is worth keeping.

Thoughts are floaty light, and even the greatest idea can drift away if it remains... if it remains... {transcript at this point becomes unreadable}