I wrapped up another read this week. The book has been returned to the local library and my notes were filed, as in "dropped in the bin." They were on top of the stack as one would expect so I was able to easily retrieve them to help write this post.

The title is The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel. It is the story of Christopher Knight who spent some 27 years sequestered in the woods of Maine in a primitive camp which he kept stocked by raiding cabins and a youth camp in the area. It is estimated that he committed in excess of 1,000 break-ins over the years, and there were only two face-to-face encounters with other persons during these years. The treatment of the story is very much in the style of Jon Krakauer and his Into the Wild, but Krakauer is much more thorough in his works, in my judgment. Finkel covers multiple facets of the story and makes use of a variety of outside resources in his attempt to get beyond the facts. The facts are relatively easily knowable. Considerable time and effort coupled with persistence and an inquisitive nature means that job gets done. The hard part is trying to ascertain the individual's motivation behind the behaviors, which can be described as peculiar at a minimum. Finkel had direct and sustained communication with his subject after his arrest. Krakauer did not. But even with that difference, Finkel was no more able to get at the internal machinations of his main character than Krakauer. The books ends with more unanswered questions than questions answered.

How is that? I suggest that this is the very nature of this "business" of human activity--physical and intellectual. One's internal workings, the motivations behind choices made and not made, and the intended consequences of one's thoughts and actions are unknowable to the very actor and thinker him or herself. To know something, we need to be able to put it into words and to be able to express it via the vehicle of language. Our thoughts are essentially internalized speech. The language, which we use to communicate within ourselves and among ourselves, is a common language. The vocabulary and grammar have been constructed over centuries. Throughout this same period of time, these have been evolving and continue to evolve. This evolution at time can render meaningless in a contemporary setting something that seemed so crystal clear at some previous day and context. What if the very place, which gives rise to the causal factors underlying one's individual view of and expression of this same place, the environment in which one finds him or herself, and the human activity which results, is so unique to the individual that the available common language is unable to communicate meaning and understanding? Language as the vehicle of social exchange and of thought and contemplation falls short of the task at hand. One is left dumbfounded, or makes believe that one knows that of which they speak, or knowingly creates figures of speech, such as metaphors, to do the best job possible in communicating whatever it is to oneself as well as to others.

Still another option might be to find/create a vehicle of communication that is so individualized and that sits outside of some commonly accepted standard, that it becomes labelled as insane. Some special persons may be able to bridge this divide between the knowable and the unknowable, which may be more accurately described as the speakable and the unspeakable. This may well be the creative genius of the great thinkers and artists, who are able keep one foot in both spheres. These individuals are able to incorporate enough of the sane with the insane, that the rest of us marvel at their genius and creativity and reward them handsomely. Even then the unknowingness communicated frightens some and excites others. Our individual response to the art of the other reflects our individual life experiences, our personalities, and our prior choices rather than any objective criteria. At this level, there are no objective criteria; we are at the level of individual mystery which is accessible only by direct experience and which is not able to be put into words as we might think about it (discuss it with oneself) or speak about it (discuss it with others).

This author's futile effort is insightful, not only as we attempt to understand others, but as we attempt to understand ourselves.