Shakespeare’s dead (grin). And anyway, he had his own relationship with writing. I imagine that it possessed him with the same strength and passion that you have written about.

I had one other pressured thought on this – on a mirrored neuron understanding of the world . . . true sociopaths take advantage of it! That’s part of the horror – those who can/will/easily take advantage of empathy . . . . it makes me shudder just to think of it.

Though it belongs elsewhere . . . congrats on your successful dancing debut! If I’m ever in the area I’ll be sure to check it and you out! Lucky you too . . . my partner would kill me before she’d “let” me dance in public for money . . . much less watch me do it. LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!

I think the comparison to language is spot on. Communication can be a tricky thing even between people who know each other very well, mostly because of our differences in meaning. I certainly wasn’t trying to say that we are all emotionally or psychologically (or experientially) alike, or even that we should be (shudder). But language is the tool we have to connect with each other in a way that seems, as you’ve said, essential to our survival. And mirror neurons are another tool. But they are, at best, a tool of empathy — not telepathy.

So my response to story is different from yours and anyone’s — but it’s a real response. That’s what I’m goobing on right now. When I fall into a story to that extent, it’s a “real” experience as far as that part of my brain is concerned. And I love that. The best story has always felt real to me, in the negative-capability “I know it’s not real except then why am I crying” way. And now I know that it is real.

I love the idea that what I do, if I do it well, plugs directly into someone else’s brain that way.

And I love that what I do, when I do it well, lives inside of me in a way that is not entirely metaphorical. I make story, and it bursts in my brain with all the force of my particular background of experience and assigned meaning brought to bear, so that it is powerful and rich for me in ways that I can barely describe. I’ve been searching for a while for a way to talk about this feeling, and mirror neurons are helping.

The Horror: It does not lead to deep understanding. You do not understand ME any better by understanding the change in my grip of the bat. You may understand that my intention has changed, and you may even have a fledgling understanding of why but you will not understand it as I do. You are better able to survive (ie- you can get the hell outta there) but you do not feel as I feel. In fact, you are feeling something quite different. Even in describing your own event accurately you are re-living it as an “as-if”. This is valuable, especially as a writer trying to ellicit a certain feeling state in others, but it is not the same as.

To me, it is similar to language. We use a “common” language as well, but green to me is a different green to you. “Love” is not “love”. How many times have others misconstrued your “accurate” description of an event?

It is also true that as story tellers we rely on this ability. Without it, it would all be just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. You write from a desire to connect, to be understood and show your understanding of others . . . maybe this is as close as you/we can get.