There be thoughts in my mind

I love interpreting. In our everyday life we do not walk around needing to interpret our surroundings: that has already been done. In the process of growing up we've been taught about the incredibly big and impossibly complex world of structures we're surrounded with, and need seldom re-learn it. A red light at a street means do not cross. It's in automation. Art begs of us to interpret what we see. To form an understanding of something we do not, upon engagement, understand. It doesn't have to be something new, or something we've not seen before, but merely by placements, or even – better yet – a state of mind, you can open up this endless void where new things can transpire. I wish to live there, on that edge, always. At that point where understanding takes form. Which is why I love philosophy. I was struck by, just now, the difference in reading a philosophical work and reading fiction. Though any word and sentence and story as such is a process of our translating, it's different, the two of them. To read philosophy is to translate – to interpret – to be able to understand it for your self. It is never words but ideas attempted to be translatable via words, so the reader then, has to translate from the words into ideas. If fiction is about trying to formulate a representation of life, living, breathing, and even at times too grappling with the metaphysics in trying to convey something. Philosophy is a purer form. Which is why it's more difficult to read too. Both are forms of representation of something intangible (and I love fiction too of course) – but philosophy tries to link the words in a direct manner to the unwordable. And when you have interpreted what you are reading it is an idea that you are rewarded with, not words. Which is why it's so difficult to try and explain what it is you've read, what you've understood. I can understand a philosopher in my mind, but to put that into words...