Effing the Ineffable: Why I think Art is Important

According to a view of psychology to which I subscribe, there are two parts to our minds, two parallel processes that contribute to our thoughts, judgements and actions, what Kahneman and Tversky termed System 1 and System 2 thinking.

System 1 is our “fast thinking” side, where emotion and instinct informed by past experience and learning drive our judgement and action, with all the thought taking place in the “back rooms”, the vast mainframe of our mind that “we” don’t have a lot of access to, even though it has a lot of access to “us”. System 2 is that part of our mind that is more what we think of as “us”, the consciously logical and calculating part that counts and measures things. This latter, more “human” part of our thinking is a more recent addition, whose evolution is closely linked with language.

We have evolved to be a social species, whose success lies in our ability to interact, which in our case has created a need and an urge to communicate our thoughts to each other. Our thoughts and judgements at the deeper system 1 level are enormously complex, being based on the accumulated experiences of every moment of our lives and unfortunately all we have to communicate them, not being telepathic are various meaty protuberances flapping and waving about, some of which we can honk air through. Thus (I believe) system 2 thinking evolved as a way of simplifying and structuring those aspects of our thoughts that we needed to share to an extent that they could be communicated  via the limited means available.

I believe consciousness was an emergent consequence of this endeavour; in building the processes that could put together a coherent, consistent whole from this simplified, rather granular overview of the pathways and contents of our minds, we built ourselves. To put it another way, in evolving to communicate with others, we also evolved to communicate with ourselves, albeit on this simplified level. (The areas of the brain that are used to structure ideas and concepts are the same ones we use to interpret the structure and concepts of language)

The means used to communicate with ourselves are surprisingly similar to those we use to communicate with others. If I ask you “How are you feeling?” you initially have no idea. You have to ask yourself the question first before you can answer, as though you are asking a third person. More than that, the question you ask yourself isn’t even “How am I feeling?” it’s “How would a person like the one I imagine myself to be, be feeling given the sort of circumstances I find myself in at this moment?”

Each of us carries within ourselves a vision of the universe, one that is unique to ourselves. This vision is built up second by second from our own observations and experience, combined with what we have learned second hand from others, Not only this but our interpretation of all this data through the lens of the “us” that is in itself the sum of our experiences takes this vision to another level. The complexity of the world view that we all have and against which we make the judgements on which we act is staggering in its nuanced, layered complexity.

When we communicate with each other (and to a large extent ourselves), much of this vision gets left at the threshold of the mechanical and simplified phrasing of our methods of communication. The language that is the conduit via which our ideas leave our minds to be received and interpreted by others is restricted by the physical limitations described above.

And thus, urged by the engine that is our desire to share and communicate fully,  art bursts forth, the further evolution of language (and ourselves), by which those deeper, richer aspects of these unique interpretations of our experienced, lived and learned realities which cannot be transmitted in speech or writing, the deeps of our individual universes which we would otherwise be obliged to keep within ourselves, ineffable and unknown, may be communicated. These characteristics of art and music that are beyond the intellect in experience, that delicious feeling that we have shared something with their creators, their minds touching our own, often across time, space and even mortality are important. Art is important.

                                                                                                                AA

Eclipse - A short story

  

   “Is everyone here an alien?” Evidently, ignoring the idiot was not enough to make him go away.
      “Of course not,” I kept my tone cold and condescending, careful not to engage. I had waited a long time for this.
The Earth’s moon began to obscure its star. I stared and felt my heart beat faster.
     “But you’re an alien?”
     “Yes, shut up please.”
My eyes couldn’t take the light. I tried lowering the lids, but it wasn’t enough. I felt my pockets for the sunshades I knew I had brought.
      “Are you here to invade us?”
      “What? No, why?” Asking a question was stupid. My pocket search had distracted me.
       “Are you living among us on your own then?”
I had forgotten the sunshades.
      “I’m not living among you, I’m just here for the day.”
The moon continued to creep across the sun, and I couldn’t see it properly because I was a fucking idiot.
      “Are you not here to study us then?”
But not the biggest idiot.
      “Study you? No. Why what do you do that I might want to study?”
I tried to look through my fingers, but it was still too bright.
      “I thought you’d be here to study our achievements and human culture.”
I looked down at his cargo pant shorts and the sandwich he had in his hand
      “Maybe next time.” I squinted back at the sun, but it was still too bright. I looked around desperately, but why would anyone have spare sunglasses? If only the moon would hang on for a minute. If I could just think, there must be something I…
      “So, have you been here before then?”
      “Look fella,” I felt it was time for my patience to run out, “why don’t you fuck off and bother another alien, if you’re so interested.”
      “I might never meet another alien. I was just being friendly”
      “What? Don’t be fucking ridiculous!” I looked around at the crowd. There are loads of non-Earth people here.
      “What?” He looked startled. “You said you were on your own!”
Everything had started to get dark and cold. There was a profound silence as the birds stopped singing and roosted. confused at night falling in the middle of the day. The chatter of the crowd murmured into silence, maybe from the same primal confusion.
      “Will you shut the fuck up!”
      “Why are you so grumpy?”
I felt a twinge of guilt. It wasn’t his fault he was an idiot.
      “Look, I saved up for a hell of a long time to see this and I’ve come a hell of a long way. I came on my own, but there’s lots of people here from all over the place. I personally don’t know them. Not all of us aliens” - I did the air quotes and hated myself – “know each other. Okay?”
     “Eh? What’s going on? Why are you all gathering here?”
I was right: he was an imbecile. I gestured sarcastically upward to where I was going to miss the greatest moment of my life because I was too stupid to pack sunglasses. He still looked blank.  “For Fuck’s sake?”
      “I get the eclipse, but you must get eclipses at home?”
The penny dropped. Light (ironically) dawned. He wasn’t the idiot, I was.
      “Of course!” I iput a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, I’m such a shit!”
      “What do you mean?”
      “Yes, I get eclipses at home, we all do.” I thought for a moment “Well most of us. Probably. The thing is, they’re not like your eclipses. The way the orbit of that moon lets it just cover the sun… A tiny bit closer, or further away and it wouldn’t.. The chances of it are…” I shook my head, describing this while it was actually happening above me made me emotional, “It’s one of the rarest sights in the universe. Maybe even unique.” I paused. He thought. Actual silence. It made me feel almost benevolent.
      “We’re not here for the eclipse,” I said quietly, “we’re here for the moment after”
      “Why are you getting upset then?”
      “Look, I’ve spent everything I had to travel here, even though I can’t afford to stay and the one thing I’ve wanted to see my whole life is happening, and I won’t see it because I’ve forgotten to bring fucking sunglasses!”
      “Why don’t you do what I was going to do?” He pulled a piece of paper from his bag and tore it in two. Using his keyring, he poked a tiny hole through both halves and handed one to me. I stared at it and giggled a slightly hysterical giggle.
      “That’s not a bad idea.”
We stood and watched until the rarest, most exquisite diamond ring in the universe appeared for a few fleeting, beautiful seconds before the moon continued its transit. Warmth returned. The birds resumed their song and after a ripple of applause the crowd began to go about its respective day.
      “My name’s Chris,” said the idiot who wasn’t really an idiot.
      “Hi Chris.” I told him my name and he looked blank. “Don’t worry about it,” I said.
      “I have a couch,” he said.
      “What?”
      “If you wanted to stay for a bit.”
I smiled.
      “Why not?”
 

                                                                   AA

Lost Weekend - a short story.

        Attenberg propped himself up on one elbow, squinted against the light, and surveyed the broken furniture, bottles and cans lying around him. He could smell old urine and gun smoke. He didn’t feel well. In fact, he felt awful. He recognised he was lying in the wreckage of his own living room and groaned and lay down again. Guilt and memory smashed their way to the front of his brain with their policeman’s boots. He saw a bullet sticking out of a wall. Hilcock. Professor Sven, bloody Hilcock. Christ, Hilcock and the others had been. This was bad. He heard a key turn in the front door. His wife’s key.

         “I hear Jean’s away?” That had been Friday: a telephone call. Her car was literally just reversing out of the driveway.

         “It’s Jane. How did you know?”

         “Me and the boys might pop over, say hello.”

         “Sven, no! You can’t, I’ve got work I’ve got…” He was already gone.

          Attenberg was a quiet, serious man, a mediocrity. An otherwise unnoticeable face in the crowd, he had somehow got caught up with Sven and the others at university and it had been the ruin of him. It seemed every time he had an essay deadline or an exam there would come a banging on the door, and there they would be, tumbling over the threshold. Jalacy, drunk and ebullient, waving his customary bottle of gin, Ashton, drinking and smoking God knows what, Big Tam with the rum and always Sven, laughing and laughing and laughing. He had no idea why they had latched onto him. They were the bigger boys, the in-crowd with the drink and

the access to drugs and girls. They knew where the parties were and Attenberg could no more resist than hold back the sea.

         The living room door had a shotgun blast hole in it, behind which the face of his wife appeared.

         “Listen,” he began.

His father had advised him to find a woman wo looked good when she was shouting at him.

         “All that smiling doesn’t last long in a marriage,” he’d said. This had seemed archaic thinking, even at the time, but perhaps it had sunk in on some level.

         They were bulletproof, of course, Sven & co., top grades all over the place, careers ahead of them; that sort always come up smelling of roses. It was as though they had alternate parallel existences where some part of them had the time to be able to knuckle down and put the miles in at their desks.

         It was all very jumbled, they had been high as kites when they arrived, all full of this trip they’d been on in the Welsh mountains and Iceland. Hilcock had been banging on about trying to catch a troll. He swore he’d actually chased one which had disappeared. The details were hazy, but there had been a child involved, bait, probably. Hilcock had got over excited telling the story and that was certainly when the shotgun had gone off.

         Ashton didn’t have a hair on his body, but wouldn’t say why, just kept fiddling with the ears of the deerstalker he was wearing. Big Tam had been holding up the Spain end of whatever had been going on and was on his feet, shouting about some incident pulling down fir trees and putting together flat packed furniture.

         Jalacy is an Oxford man and seemed to be keeping it together, but Attenberg remembered noticing he was the one handing out the bottles.

         This was the sort of thing they got up to now. They’d get away with it, of course, it would be written up in some journal and more funding would appear for the next jolly.
          Smelling of roses.

         “You’ve done nothing for the meeting, I suppose, have you?” Jane was furious, but she did look amazing. “I bet all this started as I closed the fucking door! Do you think I work my arse off just for you to run us into the fucking ground? Do you?”

         Never work with family, that had been the other gem. Good advice, really, but he hadn’t thought so at the time. If she would just stop talking long enough for him to gather his thoughts and explain. He couldn’t be held to account for what happened, not after the tequila. Oh Christ, the tequila, he thought as memories of terrible little vignettes flashed back to him. It was after the tequila that things had started to get nasty. They said it was tequila, but he didn’t recognise the language on the label. It had stunk of cactus, though. 
         Hilcock had some story about a UFO encounter in Wales that Attenberg had laughed at, although to be fair, no one else had  believed it either. Hilcock had phoned some mountain man to corroborate, but it was the middle of the night and he couldn’t get any sense out of him. It seemed like no time passed between that and the next scene, which was Hilcock beating in his locked bedroom door, just dressed in his underpants and waving a bottle and still going on about UFOs, in between laughing and laughing. Presumably it had been around then that the shooting had started in the bathroom

         Finally, Jane ran out of shouting and Attenberg had some space to explain properly, but when he mentioned Sven and the others she got upset.

         “No, No! Not this.”

         “They just appeared, I couldn’t stop them! How the Hell could I get anything done in the middle of this?” He indicated

The chaos of the lounge. Jane continued to shake her head.

         “Not this bullshit! No more!” She took her tablet from her bag and opened a browser. She thrust it in front of his face. Attenberg couldn’t look, he knew what was coming and his soul couldn’t bear the weight of it. He turned his face away.

         “We have security now. Cameras.”

The screen was divided into four scenes, each representing a room in their home. A tiny, dark figure could be seen running back and forth, appearing in one scene, then another, then back to the first, arms flailing. One tiny figure. Just one.

         “Look at it!” She wasn’t angry now, she was crying. She held out the tablet. One of the quarter scenes was filled with a grinning, desperate, hollow-eyed face, but Attenberg couldn’t look. He was curled on the floor and laughing and laughing and laughing.

                                                              AA