I’ve been thinking about the difference between feeling and thinking. What role does literature and writing play in evoking these different mindsets? I think its interesting to think of these binaries, of thinking versus feeling, of reason versus imagination. When we evoke the imagination, perhaps it evokes a feeling rather than a thinking, and perhaps all thinking really stems from feeling. Or genuine thinking, believable thinking, has to be felt.

So when trying to write with exactness, I think it is important to evoke a feeling rather than a thinking. This is something that I struggle with in writing, because I think, as Italo Calvino writes, that exactitude comes from three key parts: well-defined/well-designed; evokes “clear, sharp, memorable images” (p. 68); and precise language. Evoking clear and memorable images requires a degree of feeling, being well-designed to evoke imagination. It requires an attention to detail that would resonate with the memory and reimagination of a stranger, or your audience (if they be strangers). I think this is a critical role of writers trying to evoke a sentiment in their audience, especially a sentiment of ignition and galvanization.

This effort is seen very clearly in the collection of definitions from Counter-Desecration. I had no idea what azhigwa meant, I didn’t even know it was a word, and the definition for it is not literal. Instead, it is a collection of precise evocations of the meaning of the word, a collection of sharp images that allow me to feel the essence of the word, rather than reason its definition. Some of the definition doesn’t even make literal sense, the “breathe time” and to “thread one’s hands through the atmospheric filaments,” but it makes sense as a feeling because of the image and imagination the words evoke. It makes me want to feel azhigwa. It makes me want to do something.