Floodgates
I have been to places where flooding is common, even though I have never lived in a proper flooding area and have, thankfully, never experienced flooding. The closest I came was the floods in York in December 2015 where the two rivers (Ouse and Foss) were ‘let loose’ by some crack in a local dam that caused millions of pounds of damage and reparation to the local community. I have also seen flood warnings that warn of habitual threats from flooding in the region. As a child growing up in Hong Kong, I used to see TV adverts that contained footages of real floods, especially in mountainous areas where debris caused by torrential rain was a real threat. I realise the inherent dangers and potential damage of floods (and hence the need for constant alert, prevention and damage control in flooding areas), but I also recognise that flooding is a marvellous natural phenomenon that can be wonderful to behold. The root cause of flooding is the build-up of water pressure in a tight space which, when released (accidentally), gives a big splash, and the bigger pressure within, the bigger the outward motion. Hazardous and dangerous aside, it must be said that floods are wonderful to behold as these are fantastic natural phenomena that Mother Nature has bestowed upon us. As a water-lover, in addition to documentaries about our oceanic ecology and marine biology, I also enjoy watching the flow of water at full blast and marvel at the majestic flow of natural kinetic energy. It is easy to understand why pent-up water pressure positively correlates with the outpour of water energy during flooding, and it is natural that the more pressure is built within, the more spectacular the outward burst. Once again, we see Newton’s theory of motion at work here, namely the greater the force, the greater the reaction. The more water pressure builds up behind or within the dam, the bigger the flood when the floodgates open, whether by design or accident.
Again, there is a personal story to share here: when I was writing my dissertation at the University of York, I was suffering a bit mentally. For some reason, I was struggling to get on with my work and I did not start drafting till quite late in the research process, which was a disastrous move considering that active drafting is much more effective than passive reading. I spent much of the duration of my course reading profusely on a wide range of subjects and ended up with massive quantities of notes containing a huge block of information, but not an equivalent amount of insight or analysis. I panicked through the period prior to submission as I hastily came up with something to hand in, and I was dissatisfied with my submission, which contained loads of information and insights but it was not written clearly enough, and this was commented on in my examiners’ report (luckily, I did not fail and I got Pass with Minor Corrections which allowed me to work on my dissertation for an additional number of months in preparation for the final submission and approval). After I submitted my dissertation, I was quite exhausted and took a few days doing absolutely nothing. I then moved house and I found a new residence that was much more pleasant than my previous lodging as it was more spacious and comfortable (at least for me), and my mood was elevated significantly due to being in a much more comfortable (working) environment. I was lucky enough to pass even with my subpar submission, and in the period of time which I was given to make corrections and amendments to my dissertation, I was able to rework my ideas and convey them much better, not only because this time I had received the reassurances of my examiners (and supervisors) who approved of the ideas and arguments in my messy draft, but also because I was living/working in a much better environment where I could relax and let my ideas flow. This was an intellectual flood realised by the opening of mental barriers and floodgates which let loose a giant stream of ideas that had been brewing in my mind during the many months of mental agony, and the amount of intellectual pressure that had been in my mind for so long finally released a long stream of ideas that were long waiting to be formulated in writing. Passive and Active knowledge are two sides of the same intellectual coin, and the more passive preparation we do, the bigger the active outcome we can achieve. This correlation also works in terms of sensation, since when severe mental pain and agony is finally compensated by the formation of well-formed ideas that could easily be put down in a draft, it is indeed a most satisfying, almost orgasmic, intellectual thrill. An expression once used by the late Martin West, one of the greatest Classicists ever (and a fellow Balliolite), one’s mind can enter into an ‘intellectual ferment’ in the final stages of the preparation of one’s work. This reminds me of an old fable my secondary school teacher once told us: ‘Heaven and Hell exist side-by-side. When our heads are drowning in water, the moment we get released for a gasp of air, we reach Heaven by being in Hell for so long.’ Pain and pleasure can seem to exist in relation to one other, and without one we may never appreciate or even feel the other. I am not sure whether I would like to go through so much mental pain as I experienced during the writing of my dissertation again, but if I do not, I may never experience such a thrill as the releasing of my mental floodgates again. Time to choose.
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Originally published at http://keithtselinguist.wordpress.com on July 20, 2023.
