The Unprofessional Boy #32

thoughts as states and phase changes

Ideas are an amorphous form of matter; they are roughly as far down as the base of conceptual architecture goes, and they underpin pretty much everything. Ideas, considered as atomic, act according to the states of matter and phase transitions observed by physical science. I have found this concept useful in the structure and understanding of my writing:

Here is the core insight: thoughts are gas, words are liquid, and a written work is solid. Heat is still more or less a measure of energy, in this new framework, and plasma is an edge case I don't care much to think about: connections between thoughts, maybe, or new discoveries.

Thoughts are gas; very rarely do they interact directly with solid, finished products. Sublimation, the drawing of direct inspiration, is rare without a period engaging with a work on the liquid level through interpretation or analysis. Deposition is similarly rare; the moments in which a flash of that inspiration connects with a given medium without the intermediary of planning or discussion are few and far between.

Words are liquid. Consider: If there is one rule I am able to identify in fictional adaptations, it is this; the soul and character of the work must be preserved above all else. The specific details of composition are irrelevant compared to the feeling a given book or movie evokes. If that ineffable, emotional sense can be transferred, the adaptation is most likely successful. That feeling is much more important than the vast majority of individual lines or scenes, just as it is more important than the story’s proximity to reality.

One major method for avoiding the decay of a work is to imbue it with transferable properties; in this case, it is distinguished primarily by the feeling of the artifact rather than the skill with which a given medium is exploited. For instance, a blog post can be summarized and expanded upon in a video essay; if the fundamental insight is carried over and explained properly, the writing and editing matter less.

When this idea is applied weakly, it constitutes a veneer for re-use of content which stems from the desire to create two solid, final products. The basis for such repurposing should instead arise from a respect for the levels of liquid (words) and gas (ideas.) They can be reverse-engineered or extracted from a solid, but this fails to carry over the internal spark responsible for the original success (artistically, commercially, or otherwise.)

In specific, there is often discussion of rewriting a Twitter thread into a blog post; this hasn’t worked for me in the past, in large part because both are already solid. The words have been set; they must be recast via melting and freezing, because there is a fundamental difference between what makes a good thread and a good blog post: both are defined by their medium.

Relatedly, I believe that the possibilities for storytelling in a threaded environment are broadly underexplored in an ideal sense, but for the reasonable justification of present real-world constraints and inexperience: this deficit owes its continued existence to the recognition that words are liquid, flowing into and forming the shape of their container— a container which is not yet fully defined. A good Twitter story should not read as were a traditionally published short story; it cannot— but how should it read?

Experimentation is necessary in these transmutations. In their given specificity, works are akin to clay sculptures; they can be edited, their material cut and stacked and molded, but they cannot easily return to the slurry of free-flowing composition. A book's first draft is to be chiseled and carved, the best brought out of it, before hardened into its definite, final form.

Some works have been thoroughly blasted with bursts of gaseous thought for so long that they turn dusty and dry, losing their liquid meaning. The meaningful portion becomes only the brushstrokes of paint on canvas, overexposed. They can be rehydrated with delicate, careful reapplication of that water (examination, critique, or simple appreciation from new angles,) but the work will be slightly different thereafter: revitalized, though imbued with new significance.

Why would you go to pull the energy out of thought and bind it into verbal meaning, then? Why spend that fluidity, casting away possible expressions to put words down into solid form: a particular essay or post? The main answer is obvious, and it's an argument many people have made and will make for writing: it's paramount to have something, anything, to shape, and to have it stay that way.

Gaseous thought is the perfect synthesis of all simultaneous arrangements of liquid words, but you can't feel it; it cannot be shared at all. Those words are the same, unbound by order and design, to solid work: until they are put down on the page, they do not rightfully exist in any way which allows them to be held.

Orion