Wonk

Do you ever know something that you don't know how you know it?

Photo by Jorge Simmons-Valenzuela on Unsplash

Typos are very instructive. I sometimes type letters in reverse order when my ideas get ahead of my fingers. Have you ever noticed that “wonk” is the opposite of “know”?

The first time I heard the word “wonky” was in the remake of The Fugitive with Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford. One of Jones’ fellow marshals said that something was “wonky” about the Kimball case, and Jones complained about the use of words he didn’t know. Yet he too knew that something was wrong, and he knew it in a way that he could not explain.

That’s wonk.

My main character, Fairy Godmother Maven Morrigan, calls that kind of knowing her Bump of Direction, which does not so much orient her as to north and south, but gives her wonk--the knowing that comes from nowhere.

Where is the place of knowing? Know-where?

There is a collective unconscious, a oneness of All That Is, of which each of us is a node, a part, a connection, a neuron. Just as our brains are networks of neurons and synapses, and our thoughts are electrical charges that make repeated patterns across these networks, we ourselves are synapses in the consciousness of the Universe.

We have our educated intelligence, that which we have learned from our shared reality, and we have wonk, that backflow of information that comes, not from the space outside our skin, but from the inner connection to the Universe, the Inner Being, the Higher Power...pick the name that works for you.

Photo by Rainer Bleek on Unsplash

Wonk is the muse. Wonk is the information from the still small voice. Wonk is the knowing that passes understanding, but is nevertheless true. The information that comes intuitively is often hard to understand and apply, yet its truth is undeniable. A collection of information seems wonky when a piece or two is missing, or where the mental image of the puzzle box does not match the picture that the puzzle pieces make.

Making use of wonk is more difficult, unless you trust yourself and are not paranoid about getting intuitive information. Following a hunch, making some space for allowing wonky information to come is a new habit I intend to pursue. Kurt Gödel proved that you can’t make a closed and internally consistent mathematical model that will explain everything. Some things just don’t add up...and that’s where the wonk comes in. Pay attention to it, because that’s how you find the corners of the puzzle.