As some of you know, I’ve developed a vey specific method to deal with a fundamental language issue: forgetfulness.
The method is simple enough. We start with a word or a concept that’s used in everyday speech. It can be an adjective like “hot,” a verb like “to sit down” or even an adverb like “forward” or a preposition like “on.” It could also be a noun like “ceiling” or “night” or a pronoun like “us” or “here.”
What we then do is explore our memories for the opposites of these words. Sometimes the contrary comes instantaneously while for others, it takes a moment or two and for some, we just can’t find them even though we … “know” them.
Where are these words we can’t find?
Assuming they’re not new, never-encountered words but merely inactive or latent, are they just lost in our memories – covered in dust, or rusty … like an old bicycle in the back of the garage or is there some other psycho-linguistic reason we can’t recall them? Do we know them … but ignore them?
It seems that most of the time, these words we “know” but can’t remember – or seem to have forgotten – have fallen asleep … and like Sleeping Beauty who wakes up with a kiss from her Prince Charming, only need their complementary partners, their “other halves” to wake them up and come back to life!
And when this waking up happens, we’re bringing something up from our unconscious to our consciousness. And what do you know? Recognition happens.
Déjà vu?