Random Thoughts About Thought
Excerpt from “Why Knot?” Buy the book at Amazon
Thought exists before words. When we associate a thought with words, the thought becomes clearer through the association of those words with other words and other thoughts. And the thought becomes richer when we share those words with other people, who then associate them with other words and other thoughts and engage in dialogue with us and with one another.What once was a shapeless glimmer of a thought sometimes spreads from person to person and from generation to generation, gaining momentum and following its own trajectory, far beyond its origins.
When I was young, I believed that until it was expressed in words, a thought was not yet a thought, as in the opening of the Gospel of John, “In the beginning was the Word.”
But as I get older, I sometimes grope for words to express a thought after that thought has taken shape in my mind. My first choice of words might be on the tip of my tongue, but out of reach; and I scramble to find alternate ways to express what I mean.
So, with advancing age, it’s not just retrieving memories that becomes difficult, but finding words as well. The thoughts are there, but the words are not.
Perhaps that passage from John would be better translated, “Before the beginning was the Thought, and the Thought was with God, and the Thought was God…”
