This reminds me of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Darmok” where they discover a civilization that only uses references to stories to communicate, making it indecipherable by the universal translator (I wrote a whole Lit Lang essay on this in high school 😭)
This also vaguely makes me think of time vs space complexity and the fact that maybe the reason why people are referencing storytelling more is because as history progresses, we build a bigger database of common experiences and are able to reference them very quickly. And with video mediums especially, we can refer to them EVEN more quickly than we could by describing with words.
Does this mean that we will reach a point where it’s impossible to have any kind of unique experience?? 😮
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”
Pov: you have just been made aware of the way your brain selectively ignores certain things for the sake of making a story able to be passed on and interpreted by others
There's always twists, your content is very well thought-out and put together, I remember you making a video about the fact that everyone starts off by saying 'It's crazy how nobody talks about this' in videos or podcast conversations and about the YouTuber accent and since then I've noticed your use of them in your own videos.
pov: i am reading this essay
pov: ur brain is stringing together words to interpret meaning
pov you’re using the visual of stringing “items” (words) together as a means of describing the act of connecting words while pondering their sequence
Do we actually know how does this work? I mean the stringing words together
pov: I just read a pov of a story being told and enjoyed it so much that I'm leaving a comment to let the author know
i love your work so much; it also reminds me of the idea of separating ur life into ‘eras’ (a series of different story arcs)!!!
pov: ur in the comment section
This essay was read by a NPC.
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(I’m the NPC)
HI ADAMMMM
This reminds me of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Darmok” where they discover a civilization that only uses references to stories to communicate, making it indecipherable by the universal translator (I wrote a whole Lit Lang essay on this in high school 😭)
This also vaguely makes me think of time vs space complexity and the fact that maybe the reason why people are referencing storytelling more is because as history progresses, we build a bigger database of common experiences and are able to reference them very quickly. And with video mediums especially, we can refer to them EVEN more quickly than we could by describing with words.
Does this mean that we will reach a point where it’s impossible to have any kind of unique experience?? 😮
Anyway BYE ADAM HAVE FUN IN TAIPEI
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”
Pov: you have just been made aware of the way your brain selectively ignores certain things for the sake of making a story able to be passed on and interpreted by others
There's always twists, your content is very well thought-out and put together, I remember you making a video about the fact that everyone starts off by saying 'It's crazy how nobody talks about this' in videos or podcast conversations and about the YouTuber accent and since then I've noticed your use of them in your own videos.
Keep it going, I love your content!
pov have a nice trip
Any way you could make your articles in the Washington Post available on your own site without the paywall?
i am so happy to see you're on substack too! i've been such a massive fan of your work on tiktok :)
i wish i had something intelligent to add but i'm always so awe struck with the way you shift our mundane perspectives in such transformative ways!
yo how long will you be in taiwan? I sent a dm on instagram to hang out / be language nerds
This was the best thing I've read today, omg
Welcome to Taiwan! Hope you have a nice stay.