The term introspectablia refers to thinking and the inner language that precedes overt actions and behaviours. The collection of raw words, thoughts, contemplative images, and instances of inner utterances; hazy internal introspective matter.

While acknowledging its presence, many philosophers dismiss introspective material as daydreams which are irrelevant and difficult to identify; thus giving credence to only what is on the outside because public verification is required for any concept to have proper validity. The most common example being that a specific color cannot be something private.

“Red cannot be something private. The structure of the concept is its public structure, which is established by coinciding procedures in public situations”

British philosopher and author Iris Murdoch examines the term throughout her work in relation to language, and morals and argues the opposite, in that introspectabilia is just as difficult to describe as an overt action or behavior and that although we cannot see it, it still exists and still has relevance in relation to our being as we develop and change over time. In this sense introspectabilia is valued as accumulation, and interim evidence (vs culmination and conquest) that work is always happening as we examine and correct behind the scenes constantly over time in the pursuit of perfection and understanding. Nothing on the outside is ever perfect, this we know. How much and what goes on behind the scenes in an effort to make it so, remains a question.

What is of particular interest here is introspective language and its role in the creative process. How does the imperfect jumble, and gibberish of internal images, words and thoughts contribute to the “finished” article; as imperfect as this article is? What exactly are the cumulative components of the creative process and what is the journey from one seemingly innocuous internal monologue or image to the next?

Thoughts drift towards process, perfection, and the possibilities that surround imperfection. What is put forth into the public sphere centers around the idea of producing a completed project, opinion or concept to be critiqued for validity. This implies an end point or an end. No end is intended here however, only the means; a mish mash of the incomplete and obscure. A procession of introspective material, vulnerable to vitriol and subject to change. Seeds of a curious mind and flowering imagination; germinating emotions, and thoughts. This will be exemplified and as such indirectly explored here in an exposition of imperfection and marriage of the covert and overt.

“Not all our new concepts come to us in the form of language; but the attempt to verbalise them may result not in frustration but in a renewal of language.”

Each item of introspectabilia (word, term, phrase) included here was captured daily over the course of a year and revisited 365 days later as a prompt for the imagination and creative process, to personally and objectively uncover how actionable and catalyzing once relatable, cloudy terminology and imagery is once meshed with the present. As though wandering through a foggy meadow filled with weeping words and reflective ponderings; concepts, and contexts will wilt and wonder, but they will be continually pursued here as a repository and living archive of sustained progress. At the very least this will suggest an alternative approach to personal publishing embracing the imperfect as acceptable, serving as a digital space of freedom where mistakes can gallivant. In summation, an active abstract resembling introspectabilia.

“Though the difficulty of discerning the inward part and connecting it with the outer as a condition of the latter could still be considerable.”

(All quotes Iris Murdoch – Existentialists and Mystics)