--- title: Early genre: prose id: early toc: "Early" project: title: "Buildings out of air: Paul in the Woods" class: paul order: 35 next: - title: Toothpaste link: toothpaste - title: Father link: father prev: - title: Stump link: stump - title: Dream link: dream ... _YOU CANNOT DISCOVER ART ART MUST BE CREATED_ he sat on the couch at home while his mother [watched TV][] and smoked. [Dinner had been chicken][] and peas with [milk][] and afterward Paul and his mother sat on opposite ends of the couch. At intervals she would look sideways at Paul writing. He pretended not to notice. _ART = ARTIFICE_ he wrote. _ARTIFICE MEANS UNNATURAL. ARTIFICE MEANS BUILT. TO BUILD MEANS TO [FIND A PATTERN][] & FIND A PATTERN IS WHAT WE ARE GOOD AT._ He thought about this while someone else won a car. "Do you think humans are good at finding patterns because we are hunters" he asked his mother. She [looked sideways][] at him and said "Sure Paul." "Early on in our evolution we were hunters right? And to hunt we had to see the patterns in seemingly random events, like where the gazelle went each year" "Paul I'm trying to watch TV. If you're going to write this stuff go do it in your room you're distracting." Paul got up and went to his room and lay down on his bed. "If the gazelle went [to the same place][] every year" he thought "did they know the pattern too? Or was it random for them, did they think each year 'This seems like a good spot let's graze here' without knowing?" He wrote _PATTERN = MEMORY_ in his notebook. [watched TV]: real-writer.html [Dinner had been chicken]: when-im-sorry-i.html [milk]: shipwright.html [FIND A PATTERN]: fire.html [looked sideways]: movingsideways.html [to the same place]: serengeti.html