Cognitive Reasoning

Representations have always been something I’ve been interested in. Mostly because I think everyone misrepresents me. Because of this, I’ve wanted to figure out why this is. Why so many people can see so much more in me than I believe to be true. How sometimes, they seem to get me so wrong. Naturally this has spilled over into my writing

It started with Why I Write. As I explain in that piece, for me, my life and writing seem to be very much intertwined. Which makes sense I guess, because writing is something that I have often thought people get wrong about me. “You’re gonna write a book, right?” “You’re going to school for journalism, right?” No and no, but nice try. I just always found it funny how people thought that they could nail down who I was by what I did. They assumed these things without ever really trying to get to know me, or learn what my actual plans were. They didn’t even need me in order to write their version of my life. I find that interesting.

That interest was fueled when I read The Hours by Michael Cunningham. There were so many lines in that book that resonated with me. This passage for example:

“He is the opposite kind of egotist, driven by grandiosity rather than greed, and if he insists on a version of you that is funnier, stranger, more eccentric and profound than you suspect yourself to be – capable of doing more good and more harm in the world than you’ve ever imagined – it is all but impossible not to believe, at least in his presence and for a while after you’ve left him, that he alone sees through to your essence, weighs your true qualities (not all of which are necessarily flattering – a certain clumsy, childish rudeness is part of his style), and appreciates you more fully than anyone else ever has. It is only after knowing him for some time that you begin to realize you are, to him, an essentially fictional character, one he has invested with nearly limitless capacities for tragedy and comedy not because that is your true nature but because he, Richard, needs to live in a world peopled by extreme and commanding figures. (60-61)”

So many times I’ve felt exactly like Clarissa. At some parts, reading The Horus was like reading my life – as if Cunningham had put my feelings to words. It was this quote and others that drew me to both cherish this book, and look further into why I cherished it in the first place. Throughout the book he looks at representations and pulls them out to be examined. This made me want to do the same, in a more explicit way – which became my representations paper.

I’ve never had a paper write itself as much as my representations one did. A lot of the questions I had were able to be answered by my psych textbook – and then it was just a matter of putting together the pieces. I enjoyed writing it because I was truly interested in the subject matter. Call it a stretch, but it was the first time in a long time that I thought I might have something to contribute intellectually to the world. It was inspiring to write.

“I am multitudes” followed shortly after. There was no better way in my opinion to display the disconnect between what someone sees in you and who you are then by displaying several different aspects of someone’s personality all in one picture. As far as representations go, I think that picture did a good job at representing my concept.

I would be lying if I said that after dedicating my semester to examining this phenomenon I now know everything that I can know about representations. It’s not a topic that is able to be mastered. Like memory, it exists as an enigma; anyone who chases it only getting further and further from the truth. But I do think it’s worth exploring. Even if it just gets more and more confusing, even if I never get to the bottom of it, it gives me something to search after. Something to contemplate, something that to explore. I hope by the end of this, you feel similarly.