Neo Ideograms

by Caitlin Johnstone

This poem reminds me of Goethe’s “Selige Sehnsucht”, which I transcribed into ids and made a post of a long time ago. But Johnstone is no Goethe. This poem caught my interest because of its characterization of habit as the “opposite of life”. I had been doing some ideographic thinking about “habit” recently. (My id for “habit” is explained in my recent post on “always”.) Habit is of course not the opposite of life, but a double-edged sword. Bad habits are a scourge and enemy, but good habits can be a tremendous tool and strength, consciously chosen, positive elements character, achievements that one works to establish. When I was in high school in the 60s I read a book by John Dewey that considered life in terms of habit.

As for the theme of being more alive, though literary and philosophical approaches are not without their value, Dr. Ray Peat’s idea of improving human consciousness and aliveness through improving cellular metabolism has, I think, more to be said for it (Raypeat.com, raypeatforum.com). In his approach, the real enemy is not habit but PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids–basically vegetable oils).

Sometimes I get over-pleased and -excited about an id improvement that I may not end up liking better in the long run. We’ll see.

As always, the medium is the message. I made a number of good id improvements while doing this transcription.

On a page like this I might typically make 10 or so id improvements or completely new ids. I also make them throughout the day and while lying in bed, as ids are a permanent part of my psyche. These are permanent additions to my mind. It’s a wonderful hobby.

One point I try to make with this post is that I often go ahead and reluctantly make ids for seldom used words but come to like them.

Another is that, as in the case of the id pair lull/flurry, having ids for the terms nails them down in my mind and makes them not only clearer, but more richly embedded.

someone asked me for ids for “out of body experience” and “in body experience”. I don’t know what is meant by latter though.