Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Thinking, in Pictures and Words

   I remember thinking entirely in pictures when I was young, but then training myself to think verbally by using pictures of those creepy busy  preposition ants from School House Rock (seriously, ants shouldn't wear shoes. That’s why I also think the song "Ants Go Marching" is creepy. Nor should teddy bears, one of the many reasons I think Teddy Bear Picnic is creepy.) The ants would march by with pictures of the words, you know, signs with the words I was thinking written on them.

   I would not be who I am today without the film Jurassic Park. And, I guess, the book. The scene when Laura Dern and Richard Attenborough are sitting together in the cafeteria, eating ice cream before it melts because the power is off, and Mr. Attenborough's character explains remembering Petticoat Lane and the flea circus, and wanting to make something that was actually real this time. That’s just excellent scriptwriting. Give that guy an Oscar, give him a Knighthood. The dialogue inspired me to have conversations of my own like that. It inspired me to my own form of eloquence, wanting to think in words instead of pictures.

   Anyway, Ian Malcom, Jeff Goldblum's character. Chaos theory. That dude was awesome. Sitting in the car, talking to himself, after everyone else jumped out of the car to see the Trike (Jurassic Park slang for a triceratops.) “See, here I'm now sitting by myself, uh, er, talking to myself. That's, that’s chaos theory.” Which inspired me to talk to myself. A common trait of autism is vocalization of thoughts, but I guess in me that's where it came from.

   Yeah, that's right. Jeff um uh Goldblum. For me, that was the pinnacle of eloquence. Ian Malcolm, chaos this and that.

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