This is a Picture of a Chair

...

It's just sitting there.

And I keep thinking about consciousness and zombie toasters (zombie's according to Chalmers, that is) and the fact that we don't believe that inanimate objects have "consciousness" or individual identities or selves or an expressable "I."

And I think how unfair that is.

And I think of the book Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls, where the main character can hear things like stuffed animals and doors and walls and people thinks she's crazy but she's not. Because she really can hear doors and walls and inanimate objects that we say do not have identities or any abilities to communicate.

And I want to know why.

And I want to push at philosophers and make them explain to me why this assumption is in place. Is it only because you cannot conceive of it? Cannot imagine it? Because I can. So many times I feel like a book is judging me, or a chair looks lonely, or a rock feels angry, or.... Is this merely me taking my own mental states and attributing them to inanimate objects? Am I just crazy? Am I just using language and feelings in ways that only writers use language and feelings?

I don't know.

But I wish philosophers would quit saying so forcefully that they know that chairs do not have identities or personalities or "consciousness" or anything at all they are just wood and cloth and little bits of metal nails.

Because we don't really know anything - now do we?

Changes to the Blog & Growing Up

Hey LamNams!

I thought I should let you know I'm making a bit of a change:

• My blog is now: naomiruthwrites
• My e-mail is now: naomirthompson(at)gmail(dot)com [more or less - I'm still in the midst of changing that nonsense]

I'm trying to grow up a little bit and:

• Be a tad more professional
• Learn how to write better
• Learn how to represent myself better

I shall keep you updated on any other changes! I'm looking forward to see what happens for the rest of this year. There's so many possibilities!

What about you? Any changes happening this year? Any new possibilities you're looking forward to?

Have a good week, LamNams.

WriteOnCon and Stuff I Learn About Myself

So I've been running around WriteOnCon when I have time - because they are doing a PitchFest and it's super exciting. I'm working on my pitch for WhiteWashed.

And I realized how much I miss being part of the writerly world and posting in here and all I could think of was, "Dude, why did I stop?" and I realized:

Something happened. Something mysterious and I don't know what. BUT.

I didn't think I had anything important to say. It's like someone took a vacuum hose and stuck it down my throat and sucked out all of my confidence and worth as an individual self.

I don't even know. It's so not like me. I've always been fairly confident in who I am and that I have something important to say and share.

But. Something happened and all of that disappeared and I would pull up this blog - you have NO IDEA how many times I pulled up this blog - and I would stare at the empty screen waiting for me to burp words up onto and I would just think: there is nothing I can say. Everything has already been said. People have BETTER things to say than I do.

What is my life?

What if I'm just an object interacting with other objects that have the power to produce within me the feelings of a personality and really this "I" does not refer to anything at all?

But I have an amazing friend and she e-mailed me the other day and reminded me that: I can say things that are worth saying.

So. Will I blog more? I have no idea. My laptop died and won't turn back on. I don't have a job. I have no idea what I'm doing this summer. I'm taking 22 credits part of which is writing a thesis part of which is a heavy book reading independent study... And you know what. I'll tell you more about that later. Because. I can do that.

I can write in here when I want to about THINGS and about BORING THINGS and about EXCITING THINGS and I can have a sense of humor and I can not be depressed all of the time and I can not hold myself up to some weird kind of I don't know what that keeps me from doing anything and this has become one very long sentence of longness.

Now.

I'm going to go make pasta. I might tell you about it later. Because pasta is awesome.

And life is awesome.

And here is a picture of Norway:

Let's go, guys.