[Undated] [11]. Cogitations

Suppose I want to go to Oxford Street but do not know how to find it. I may have to ask someone, or consult a map, or try to remember something that I believe would give me a clue, or … But it is obvious that if I stick to concrete examples of what I may have to do I shall not succeed in my immediate aim, which has nothing to do with Oxford Street. So instead of thinking of all the different things I might have to do before starting to go to Oxford Street, I shall see if I can find a short way of saying what I want you to know when I start writing of concrete examples of learning, such as consulting maps, policemen, and so forth. I have to make these concrete examples abstract; I have to abstract from the concrete the essence of my communication. But now that I have written this last sentence I am wondering whether abstract, concrete, essence, communication, are good words for stringing together in a sentence that has now perhaps become too abstract to teach the reader what I mean. My first attempt threatens to become so burdened with verbal descriptions of concrete images that the reader may feel overwhelmed by them to the detriment of his ability to learn what I mean.

Yet those visual images that I began to verbalize are only a small fraction of the many that were in my mind: the Radcliffe Camera; being lost in Turkestan with no policeman to ask and no knowledge of the language to help me frame a question about Oxford or Oxford Street; chain stores and uniformity; everyone talking the same language; a Brahminy bull helping himself to goods on a stall that I was not allowed to touch … I am not sure that I remember what I set out to say. But I think I know one thing that my visual images or free associations are saying, and that is something I did not mean to discuss. I was thinking of the sweets the Brahminy bull could have, but I – I was quite small at the time – could not. With an effort I can get back to the point; it is to do with learning and teaching.