Sick of Words
The longer I stay in this world the sicker I get of words. Now and then, when I hear a lovely song with a great lyric, or a little snatch of Shakespeare, I’m reminded that language is a great gift, but not so much when it’s used by children. I’m living in a world that’s overflowing with children, and I’m listening day after day, hour after hour, to the gibberish of children in the classroom.
I grew up in a generation where mothers complained a lot about having to live in a world of children, because most of them were housewives. The poor dears were trapped in a world of children and talk about children, while their husbands were able to go to work and get some stimulation from adults. I can relate to their predicament, because I’m living in a world where everybody is much younger than me, and they’re talking gibberish.
Sometimes I think about speech and its purpose in this world. It’s so inadequate. It’s used by most of us to cover up the truth, not to reveal it. Sometimes I think that words are the best tool that we have to describe something that’s no longer present, or never was present. According to the old truism, a picture is worth a thousand words, so why don’t we extend that and say that a living encounter or experience is worth a million words? You can’t begin to describe what goes on over the course of just one fabulous dinner, let alone a trip or a love affair.
Words are pathetic substitutes for the real thing. Then again, isn’t that a metaphor for where I am in my journey? I’m so tired of the substitutes. The most wonderful times that we can have here are only snapshots -- not even color, just black & white snapshots -- of what’s coming.
I’m convinced that this world’s not real. It’s convincing. It’s a good movie. But it’s still just an image of the real. Imagine being in a world where we don’t have words like “good” and “bad,” because if there is no “bad,” then why would you need the word “good.” You wouldn’t have words like “beautiful” and “ugly” because everything’s perfect. How wonderful to not even have those words. They would have no meaning in the world that I’m sure that we’re returning to, and again, this is one more reason why I’m anxious to leave.
This world is not my home, and I’m just passing through, along with the rest of us. My treasures are somewhere else, and they’re real, in that they’re eternal. They’re not temporal. I’m not going to lose them as soon as I’ve fallen in love with them, which is what happens in this crazy womb.
More and more, except for this lovely exercise on my tape recorder, I’m dispensing with words. I’d rather be alone in my garden, where the sounds that I hear -- wind through the trees, birds chirping, water gurgling, even the sound of the fan -- affect me more profoundly than any words can and are experiences not requiring words, bless them.
I grew up in a generation where mothers complained a lot about having to live in a world of children, because most of them were housewives. The poor dears were trapped in a world of children and talk about children, while their husbands were able to go to work and get some stimulation from adults. I can relate to their predicament, because I’m living in a world where everybody is much younger than me, and they’re talking gibberish.
Sometimes I think about speech and its purpose in this world. It’s so inadequate. It’s used by most of us to cover up the truth, not to reveal it. Sometimes I think that words are the best tool that we have to describe something that’s no longer present, or never was present. According to the old truism, a picture is worth a thousand words, so why don’t we extend that and say that a living encounter or experience is worth a million words? You can’t begin to describe what goes on over the course of just one fabulous dinner, let alone a trip or a love affair.
Words are pathetic substitutes for the real thing. Then again, isn’t that a metaphor for where I am in my journey? I’m so tired of the substitutes. The most wonderful times that we can have here are only snapshots -- not even color, just black & white snapshots -- of what’s coming.
I’m convinced that this world’s not real. It’s convincing. It’s a good movie. But it’s still just an image of the real. Imagine being in a world where we don’t have words like “good” and “bad,” because if there is no “bad,” then why would you need the word “good.” You wouldn’t have words like “beautiful” and “ugly” because everything’s perfect. How wonderful to not even have those words. They would have no meaning in the world that I’m sure that we’re returning to, and again, this is one more reason why I’m anxious to leave.
This world is not my home, and I’m just passing through, along with the rest of us. My treasures are somewhere else, and they’re real, in that they’re eternal. They’re not temporal. I’m not going to lose them as soon as I’ve fallen in love with them, which is what happens in this crazy womb.
More and more, except for this lovely exercise on my tape recorder, I’m dispensing with words. I’d rather be alone in my garden, where the sounds that I hear -- wind through the trees, birds chirping, water gurgling, even the sound of the fan -- affect me more profoundly than any words can and are experiences not requiring words, bless them.
posted by Old Timer at 8:22 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home