I. EMPLOYMENT
1
“THE HUMAN MIND IS A CONFLUENCE of language and imagery,” I said, the lectern’s microphone projecting
my voice throughout the auditorium. “Now, when I say ‘language,’ I am of course referring to the words we all use on a daily basis. They’re the fundamental building blocks of meaning and the tools with which we express ourselves to one another. Imagery, on the other hand, is a bit trickier to pin down. Perhaps the quickest way to describe it would be to say that it refers to any other type of thought that occupies our minds—things that are too difficult, or abstract, or outright impossible to express in words.”
My words echoed loudly throughout the venue, at the same volume as I heard it on the monitor, which made sense, given that there were few obstacles to dampen the sound waves. Of the two hundred and forty seats in the auditorium, only six were filled with live spectators.
“When we see an apple, for instance,” I said, “we first create a visual image of what we’re seeing in our minds. We recognize its red coloring, its rounded shape. But until we connect that image with the word ‘apple’ in our heads, it remains only that—an image. Not that there is a problem with this, mind you. Unless there’s a pressing need to verbally convey something related to that apple to someone else, that image is all our brains really need.”
I noticed an elderly woman in the audience nodding at this. For whatever reason, it felt like I was getting a much greater volume of immediate feedback here than I ever did during the lectures I gave online—but perhaps my mind was simply playing tricks on me.
“The same can be said for auditory experiences or tactile experiences,” I continued. “We render all sensory information—textures, sounds, smells, tastes—as ‘images’ that can only be viewed by our mind’s eye. In the philosophy of the mind, we call these images qualia, while in linguistics, they’re the signifié, as opposed to the signifiant.”
The old woman was now closely examining the personal aerial holofield projected directly before her, which should have just brought up dictionary entries for the technical terms I’d thrown in at the end. These were not the sorts of concepts one could grasp just by reading a quick summary, of course—but that was precisely why I’d chosen them to help emphasize my point.
“Yes, those words you’re all attempting to decipher right now? That’s language. And unless you’ve all been classically trained in my specific field of expertise, I assume you can see what I mean when I say that language is an awfully slow and inefficient way for one brain to communicate ideas to another.”
This got a good chuckle out of the old woman, and so I smiled back at her.
“What if I could simply share with you all the ‘mental images’ I associate with each of these concepts, and transfer my understanding of them directly into your brains? You’d all be able to instantly comprehend any topic I might wish to explain. But unfortunately, this just isn’t possible with our current technology. So instead, I must simply try as best I can to encode those concepts into words, which your brains can then attempt to decode into your own mental image—and who knows whether the end result will be anything like what I meant to convey? But I suppose I’m getting a little off topic. Here’s all I really want for you to take away from this lecture today.”
The presentation automatically advanced to the next and final slide, which featured only a single line of text:
Overcoming our mental limitations.
“In many ways, images are the default language of the human brain—a language that’s extremely difficult to perfectly decipher or translate. But we still must try, or else even our most brilliant ideas would die without ever being shared or built upon. We could not progress as a society without a logical and communicable form of thought, and so we developed language as a means of overcoming those mental limitations. It is only by distilling the contents of our minds into words that our thoughts are given form and made apprehendable to those around us. And I believe that by making an effort to express our feelings in words as much as possible throughout our day-to-day lives, we can also develop a deeper and richer understanding of ourselves. You might even say it’s the single most important step toward cultivating true, long-lasting mental health.”
I looked down at the holofield in front of me. There were exactly 370,000 viewers on the livestream. Add to that the six people in physical attendance, and a grand total of 370,006 people had stuck around until the end of my lecture. And yet, I addressed my final remarks to one elderly woman in particular.
“Thanks so much for listening,” I said, then stepped down from the podium to paltry applause and an uproarious number of “likes” as the presentation returned to the title slide.
Psychology in Our Everyday Lives
Cultivating a Healthy Mind
Dr. Seika Naisho, Psy. D.
As soon as I stepped back into the wings, the young man in charge of planning the event ran over to me like an excited puppy dog, with a spark in his eyes to match.
“That was incredible, Dr. Naisho!” he said. “Really powerful stuff!”
His passion for my lecture was so intense that my only response was a sheepish smile. I knew going in that he had to be quite the psychology enthusiast to ask me to do a largely pointless live event here.
“Honestly, the only thing I didn’t like about it was that it was over so soon! Fifty minutes is hardly enough time to even scratch the surface of your expertise, Dr. Seika!” he said, calling me by my first name like we were old friends—which struck me as particularly funny, because I couldn’t remember either of his. “So hey, if you’re not busy later, I was thinking maybe we could get lunch or something?”
That was a bridge too far. I let my annoyance show plainly on my face. This emotion was one I never had any trouble converting into words, yet it seemed for once, I was able to convey my thoughts completely nonverbally, as he immediately shrunk back. With a prayer that he’d take the hint, I gave a little bow and turned to leave—but the annoying puppy-boy insisted on seeing me all the way to the door.
“I really mean it, though!” he said. “You did some truly inspiring work today!”
Now this choice of words really rubbed me the wrong way. He was just a blatant ass-kisser at this point. Yet still, I tried my best to be professional.
“That’s very flattering, thank you,” I said with a smile. “But really—psychology’s only a hobby.”
2
I stepped out the front door of the Tachikawa Cultural Center and into the bustling afternoon rush of the city. Uniformed schoolchildren on their way home, homemakers walking around with bags upon bags of brand-name goods dangling from their arms, a group of middle-aged men filing into a nearby sports gym—everyone was living out their happy lives with healthy minds. While I knew that, for most of human history, mental illness had run rampant, these days, it was getting exceedingly hard to find anyone suffering from poor mental health. This made my personal field of study rather niche, as it was now virtually irrelevant to modern society, but I didn’t mind. I studied psychology because I liked it, and that was reason enough.