What people are thinking

Last night we were drinking

and someone said to me, "What do you think she is thinking?"

I replied, "I don't try to think about what people are thinking, I try to figure out their motivations."

Now that I am sober with some coffee in me listening to Glenn Hansard on a college campus I'll try to think about this.

Okay, what are we thinking?

We are always thinking the present tense.

Our thoughts sometimes resemble what we say.

But our my thoughts leading my behavior

Are my thoughts the same as my motivation?

If I do something because of my blue collar background?

Is that because of my thoughts?

Okay

Lets get serious

There is a difference between thoughts and motivation

Someone thinks thoughts like these, "I am in college to be a lawyer, I am sitting here at this desk, working on this assignment, I want to get an A, I want good grades, so I can have a 3.6 so akron law school will accept me."

That is a thought process.

I mean you could add sentences like, "I need to do this. My mother will call me at five, and bitch at me. She will complain and yell at me about my life. I need to do things to make her stop bitching at me. I don't want to listen to her complain. I have to do this, this is important."

This is another one, similar to the first one. These both could be thought in the same hour, at the same desk.

Is that motivation?

Are these thoughts 'true'?

Another one, how many times has one of our friends come over and complained about their girlfriend or boyfriend stating for over an hour how their boyfriend or girlfriend is pissing them off, and then at the end they state, "I love them."

Those are thoughts?

I have thoughts all the time.

Today I thought for like three minutes about Chinese Buffet.

Do you want to know what I'm thinking?

Okay

Maybe this

What about other people's 'rationalizations?"

How about those?

You CANNOT ASK A HUMAN WHY THEY RATIONALIZE ON A CERTAIN SUBJECT.

This is failure.

I personally might be able to rationalize why I believe in a certain political stance or why I bought a certain car.

But don't ask me why I love a certain person or why I have these certain friends.

I could state some things like, "I like this and this about them."

But I could never and I don't think anyone can give a completely 'true' answer.

Okay

We are writers

lets think about characters

You have a character

The character

thinks

The character

rationalizes

The Character

has motivations

The character

also talks

The character

also does things in slience

That is really empirical though and not very artistic

But what about 'how the characters feels things?'

I mean, how do they go about 'feeling'

Not feeling, like sick or something.

Or feeling a pillow or a tomato.

But 'feeling' concerning things, when they read something, now what does it make them think, 'but what does it make them feel?'

I'm not doing a good job of saying this?

A behaviorist would call a reaction to a stimulate.

but that is too strict

Feelings, are poetic, song like, notes on a piano.

How does their piano play?

What songs do they play naturally?

What do you hear when we are near them

Put your ear to the floor and listen

To that song that comes from them

You have to be able to hear that song

I was at a restaurant the other day with BW.

BW and I was sitting at a table, looking young, smiling. We had cute clothes on. We had just taken a long walk in the woods and felt good about existence. That life was worth it.

The server was the first girl I had ever kissed. She isn't a girl now, she is a woman close to her 30s with three kids and an ex-husband.

We spoke politely to each other. The same things everyone says to people they knew years ago.

The only sad thing she said, was, "I'm working here."

Her face had no glow, she looked tired, her eyes could barely open, her voice was not strong, it was weak. It was like she did not have the motivation to even talk anymore. Her bones were tired. BW and I watched her walk around the restaurant carrying herself with a sense of defeat. Things had not turned out well and she didn't know how to repair them.

See the line, "Things had not turned out well and she didn't know how to repair them."

I sit wondering

Where did I get that line?

Where did the truth come from that made that line?

If you asked the server, in person, in a crowd of her peers, Do you think the sentence "Things had not turned out well and she didn't know how to repair them."
describes you.

She would say no.

But I think alone, if she read it, she would 'feel' the line. She wouldn't think the sentence, "Yes, that is it. I do know empirically that things didn't turn out well, that I made some bad decisions, that things are not like I pictured them when I was young envisioning my future. And yes that is true, I do not know how to make things better. I just don't know what to do."

I think she would 'feel' the line. She wouldn't have thoughts concerning the line exactly.

Maybe the line might spark thoughts, but what thoughts I the writer, do not know.

But BW and I could hear her song and we listened. The notes said, "Things had not turned out well and she didn't know how to repair them."

So lets answer this question sober

"What do you think she is thinking?"

"I do not know her thoughts, but what song do you think she is playing? Perhaps that will better lead us to what we are searching for?"