When Words Keep Taking You to the Same Place

Sometimes we have explained a problem so thoroughly that we can no longer see it differently.

We know what happened. We know why. We know who did what. We know what our options are. We may even know what we should do, and yet we're stuck. At that point, more words may simply take us around the same familiar circuit.

This is one reason I've become interested in images—not because they contain hidden answers, but because they can interrupt the explanations we already know how to give. Sometimes a bridge can do something a paragraph can't.

The efficiency of words

Language is one of our primary tools for making sense of experience. We name things. Categorize them. Explain cause and effect. Construct narratives that help events become coherent. That's enormously useful, but once we've told a story enough times, the language can become remarkably stable.

This happened because..., I'm the kind of person who..., She always..., I could never..., My only choices are...

The explanation may be accurate. It may also determine what we're able to notice next. We begin looking for information that belongs inside the story rather than information that might alter it.

Then a bridge appears

Imagine that you've been thinking about a decision for months.

You've made lists. You've talked to friends. You've rehearsed both sides of the argument. Then, for whatever reason, a bridge catches your attention. Not The Bridge, with a predetermined symbolic meaning that someone else can look up and hand to you.

Just this bridge. Perhaps it's narrow. Perhaps you can't see what's on the other side. Perhaps it's sturdy and ordinary. Perhaps you're more interested in what's beneath it than where it leads. Perhaps what catches your attention isn't crossing at all.

That's where an image becomes useful. It doesn't tell you what your situation means. It gives you something different to think with.

An image can hold more than one thing at once

Words tend to move toward specificity. Images can tolerate contradiction.

A bridge can suggest connection and separation at the same time. It can draw attention to departure and arrival. To what lies between. To what supports the crossing. To whether crossing is even necessary.

None of those possibilities belongs inherently to the bridge. They arise in the encounter between the image and the person looking at it.

Someone else may look at exactly the same bridge and notice something entirely different. That's not a flaw in the process. It's the interesting part.

The question changes

Suppose your original question was: Should I stay or should I go? You've probably generated arguments for both choices many times.

But an image might provoke questions that don't fit neatly into either column: What am I assuming I have to leave behind? What would make a crossing feel possible? Why am I so interested in what's underneath?

Or perhaps: Why did I assume the point of the bridge was to cross it? Now we're somewhere else.

The image hasn't answered the original question. It has changed the field of inquiry. And sometimes that's far more useful.

Recurring images

This also helps explain why I'm interested when someone says: I keep noticing bridges. Or birds. Doors. Houses. Paths. Water. I don't assume the recurrence predicts something or carries a message that needs decoding. But I do become curious.

What about this image keeps holding your attention? What do you notice first? What do you overlook? Has your relationship to the image changed? What becomes thinkable when you stay with it for a while?

The useful information isn't necessarily hidden inside the image. It may emerge from what happens while you're looking.

When words aren't enough

There are problems for which we simply need more information. There are others for which we need to make a decision, and sometimes we already have plenty of information but remain confined by the way we've learned to describe the problem. That's when another form of attention can become useful.

An image. An object. A metaphor. Something that interrupts the familiar explanation long enough for a different question to become possible. Not because meaning prefers metaphor. Perhaps because sometimes we do.