Chimps and Writers: A Mental Thing

Using vivid language as a writer well means I have to overcome a strong urge to scream from the tree tops and throw branches.  Instead, I have to sit down and think. That's the hard part about writing:  Doing the screaming in written words, translating emotion exactly and precisely into descriptions and passages, working with a part of the brain that overrides the primitive response so that others may experience it later.

Parents say, "Use your words" to hysterical children who need to tell about something that's happened.  Using words in the heat of emotion is a big challenge, especially when emotions feel like catapults throwing you head over heels into a wild fray.  The words eventually catch up, but it can take real effort.

At least two really different parts of the brain are involved in emotional responses.  One is the rear brain, the original primitive seat of emotions and quick responses.  The other is the much more recently developed forebrain where judgement and decisions take place.  Language in humans is complicated and takes years to develop as children grow because the forebrain is one of the last parts of the brain to become mature.  

A chimp sees a leopard and begins to scream and jump up and down, thrashing branches, throwing things.  You can picture that, right?  You also want to do that when you get really excited (admit it).  That's why we love sports and rock music so much.  We get to be primitive and scream and holler in our excitement, react the same way chimps do when they scream, thrash, throw things and wave their arms around.  Probably a leopard just runs for the hills once faced with so much commotion.  I would if I were a leopard.  Definitely.

A writer must not only set a scene but describe characters and their emotions perfectly so you are riveted with excitement, feel like you are there yourself, and care about what happens next.  No jumping up and down and shrieking unless you are the character or the reader.  A writer must think it all through, one word at a time.

Chimps don't have that luxury.  Whooping and swinging in the treetops is the height of their experience.  It's not just an opposable thumb thing, because chimps and people both have them.  A chimp has far less forebrain than we do, relies more on instinct and reaction to deal with its world.  We have a brain that allows for philosophy, foresight, planning, judgement and reflection.  All of those things depend on using our words.

Famously, one attempt to acknowledge the existence of both violent reaction and considered response to situations, keeping one foot in both worlds, is illustrated by the quote:  Speak softly and carry a big stick.   

I sure hope the vast majority of us are taking the option to think and use our words because if all 7 billion humans currently alive suddenly opted to be chimp-like, scream and jump around in the treetops, not only would every tree be crushed to the ground really quickly but we'd run out of good books to read, like Tarzan the Ape Man, for instance.  Well, that and a few other things.