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Every so often I am impelled to abandon a train of thought, or the impulse to think, and wander off on some trivial diversion, distraction, if one could say that it was some external stimulus. One is not drawn off – it is not ‘–traction’. Pushed off, driven off, would be nearer to it; it is almost topological. It is not from an
intellectual area; the Greek Phrenus, or mid-riff, would come closer. Does ‘diaphragm’ pictorialize a division between conscious and unconscious?: below and above the line. The division could also be made between male and female. Female = sub-diaphragmatic, intuitive, emotional, visceral; Male = Thoracic, intellectual. The fundamental difficulty seems to be in the gap between O and public representation. ‘Cat’ does not look like a cat as a hieroglyphic can. Or even a Chinese character, however fanciful the supposed resemblance.