Emily Dickinson, "A Thought went up my mind today" (701)

In the hospital I could only rest, but I was never comfortable enough. I slept unevenly for a few hours at a time. Someone would always come in to check my vitals or draw blood or give medicine. I couldn't lie on my side with an IV in me. The food which, truth be told, helped me recover, was so bland as to induce physical disgust. An aftertaste that reminds of when you were so nauseous you vomited all morning, afternoon, and evening is probably not the healthiest.

I got better. Learned a lot about where I live. A dearth of pediatricians. Hospitals at full occupancy. I heard one patient fight with her daughter and the doctor, refusing any more help as she struggled to swallow and breathe. She was discharged and needed a great amount of help to make it out of the room. When I was on the top floor in my room, I had a view of the whole city. I recognized the college. I saw parts of downtown. Every building felt like it had a unique function, that I was seeing something more vast than sprawling, and if given time I'd be able to identify every landmark by having been there myself.

I am recovered. Still, watching my diet and trying to get as much rest as possible.

Song: Pale Waves, "Television Romance"

I have no idea what this song is about. I guess being hot and having sex? And that being like TV? "Oh, baby, won't you stop it? / You and I haven't got it / Television romance."

It is an earworm. Truth be told, I've been listening to a lot of Pale Waves recently. Their latest album, Smitten, goes through all the teenagey cringe feelings that revolve around power, respect, lust, and maybe even love. I enjoy the brightness of their pop sound–I don't have to think, this is an easy band to get into, and I do need to turn them off if I'm going to read or write anything.

Worth reading

Henry Farrell, "We're getting the social media crisis wrong" – this is a frustrating read. You feel like you know more after you've read it, and you certainly do, but you're left without many actionable items.

Farrell holds that technologies shape the public. His thesis: "The fundamental problem, as I see it, is not that social media misinforms individuals about what is true or untrue but that it creates publics with malformed collective understandings." A given public may be composed of individuals who don't know that much on their own, but if they collectively understand that the world burning is bad, then good decisions may be made. Farrell goes on to say platforms such as Facebook and X have destroyed our ability to reason as a collective, and they do so in a particularly insidious way. They cater to a narrow band of zealots whose extreme tastes are witnessed by a larger audience. That audience then begins to believe those tastes are normal as opposed to worthy of disgust.

So what do we do? How do we get back to proper collective understandings? My own primitive thought is that we need to bring back shame for the specific crime of being an arrogant dumbass. Not just "combat disinfo," but completely pile on some dude–say, Elon Musk whenever he opens his mouth–so as to make him think twice about opening it again. The key is seeing shame as a neglected technology. Where is someone like Musk vulnerable? What groups would see him as anathema if they heard what he says?

All you need to know about NYC's congestion pricing

Emily Dickinson, "A Thought went up my mind today" (701)

Dickinson says she had a thought – "A Thought went up my mind today" – and then narrates its unique horror. She "did not finish" it; it is back from some Year she cannot "fix." She does not know why it went away, why it is here again, nor can she tell us "what it was." All she knows is "somewhere – in my Soul... I've met the Thing before."

What is at stake here? For myself, I think of massive regrets. Opportunities that could have changed everything. Or those I could have shared a life with. I don't want to remember when and where I threw them away. I don't want to admit a lack of nerve. I can certainly attest to not being able to talk about those moments: "Nor definitely, what it was – / Have I the Art to say."

But I wonder if a quiet terror also resides in Dickinson's lyric. That last stanza is a dodge, a denial that she's still bothered by the Thing. "It just reminded me – 'twas all – / And came my way no more."

A Thought went up my mind today (701)
Emily Dickinson
  
A Thought went up my mind today —
That I have had before —
But did not finish — some way back —
I could not fix the Year —

Nor where it went — nor why it came
The second time to me —
Nor definitely, what it was —
Have I the Art to say —

But somewhere — in my Soul — I know —
I've met the Thing before —
It just reminded me — 'twas all —
And came my way no more —

What could she be so terrified of? I can turn to the language of the poem and focus on the lack of completion. Things not done, ordinarily regrets, but haunting in a more suggestive way. If you can't identify the time or date, if you can't remember why it was there or why it went away, you've got to wonder whether your mind is what it once was.

I've got regrets. I wish I accomplished more, I wish I understood my opportunities better. I don't know that I feel terror at those regrets. Dickinson, however, does. You might read this as a poem about poetry. The pain of needing to create came back, ghost-like, and "reminded" her, resulting in this poem and its own withdrawal. She can't say "definitely" what ailed her, but she can write out the experience.

I don't much like that interpretation because it is too neat. We need questions which turn into other questions. And the poem does suggest her pain is more than a spur to creativity. It deletes her memory. An inability to finish what she started becomes an inability to track events or time. If she's creative, she depends on a thought occurring just like a sharp sensation hitting a nerve hard. A momentary flash where everything is told, but at what cost? Even though everything is told, you don't hear all of it, if any of it. Agony is the revelation that something isn't right, but it may not lead to the solution as much as emphasize the problem. Whether one can actually talk about what is happening to oneself is the issue.

I believe that's an appropriate tangle for us to confront. If you don't develop your thoughts, it's more than a lost opportunity. Especially for someone where creativity serves as a lifeline, a lack of development is a loss of understanding your own mind, and in a way, a loss of your own mind. It's a terror underlying art, one marked by regrets, but not reducible to regret itself. Mere mortals like myself have much to do to know anything.