This is my latest realization besides that "there is nothing in life a little wine and garlic won't cure" (Italian Proverb), and that is, I think the same as the definition of a stream of consciousness. It was first depicted by an author who's name escapes me right now in 1775 and is essentially small segments of thought or writing pretty much disconnected from each other that then make up a stream of consciousness that does eventually end up somewhere making up a whole. Kind of like my blog is doing I guess. When I heard this defined on the radio on a talk show, talk about a light going off in my head. Wow! I thought I was unique somehow or maybe just "losing it", but people actually work hard at trying to think and write along these lines and here it is, natural for me! Which is why sometimes I find it hard to formulate a cohesive picture in my explanations of things, especially myself, to others. I don't see myself as a whole, I see myself as a stream of connected, separate things, not necessarily interrelated, that make up the whole. Or at least the picture I'm trying to project at the moment. I hope I've described this okay because this was a real revelation to me and I'd like to share it in that same vein. Sometimes I feel like my brain is all over the place and (besides those rare moments it actually is) it's not really. That is just the way I assimilate data to work with it. Very piecemeal and not necessarily in order. I'll put this definition in to help elucidate my thoughts on this a little more.
In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions.
Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are distinguished from dramatic monologue, where the speaker is addressing an audience or a third person, and is used chiefly in poetry or drama. In stream of consciousness, the speaker's thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself); it is primarily a fictional device.
This doesn't exactly put it together totally but you get the idea I'm sure. I really thought this was good stuff so I thought I'd share. Sometimes we think we're alone in a particular thought and we really aren't!
Ciao for now.
Comments