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Words Are Meaningless and Forgettable
As a writer interested in spirituality and the unknown, I often find myself inside an aggravating paradox. More and more all the time, I know that the Truth (or God or whatever you want to call it) has no regard for words, language, concepts or descriptions.
If anything, those things are the traps laid out for the unsuspecting and ignorant beasts wandering blindly throughout the ancient green forests of the Truth. You can spend thousands of hours (and I have) splitting hairs over terminology and inflection and viewpoint and all the rest. And where do you end up? Still firmly caught in the thicket of words, still twisted and turned around and confused.
So my problem is, I know that. I feel that. At times the futility of description overwhelms me, makes me literally sick. And here I am, still compelled to write. Still compelled to use language to explore ineffable Truths. But part of me worries that trying to wrap in words that which can’t be expressed is a violation of it. That it cheapens and diminishes the interaction - almost like hugging your mother with a hard-on.
Not that I’ve ever done that in particular, thankfully. But I guess I do feel a certain guilt or sense of self-reproach over the whole thing. I know as soon as I confide that secret guilt with you, that some kind soul (unwilling to admit their own similar afflictions) will tell me it’s alright, that I’m doing nothing wrong, that I’m doing a service - if anything.
But sometimes all I feel like I’m doing is hacking madly at my own chains while they grow tighter and stronger. And at the same time, I’m decorating my cell, trying to make my imprisonment more comfortable, more inviting to visitors. It’s a strange paradox: I feel like I should be quiet and still and respectful of that which can’t be spoken, but I can’t seem to shut the hell up. And I have this weird urge to get everybody else talking too - and shouting and singing and laughing. Cause what else do we have, really? Maybe the ineffable really can’t be expressed. I’m willing to accept that. But maybe it can’t not be expressed either. Maybe it’s so filled with joy and noise and music and meaning and peals of bubbling, erotic, creative laughter that it simply can’t be restrained or stopped or diminished one single iota.
Maybe it’s not such a paradox after all. It’s simply life. It flows around and past our fears and guilt and misconceptions - however cleverly we’ve managed to construct them for ourselves.
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May 12th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Well I want to thank you for tying yourself up in chains for us, and forcing yourself to come out of them as well. Hahaha! Yea. Words. You spell them forward and backward, they always contradict one another…so yea, you kinda haf ta go on a HIGHER level to underSTAND them.
I like your style. You are a very brilliant person. I get so much out of reading your stuff. You’re a lot sharper than you show. So….let’s all be kind to you…and take your example. Humble ourselves to be strong. We all have a job right now. Let’s see you doing it everyone, to the best of your ability, even when the world says it’s wrong…better know your own heart instead of some murmurings so shallow! Words without soul are nonsense. But I could throw alot of nonsense words out and make perfect sense…when you’ve got your own soul, you’ve got it all. Oh yea…gots ta humble myself hehehe.
May 12th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
a man has got to do what a man has got to do. we all have a spark of the divine in us, maybe that is your obsession……..wanting more than a spark. nothing wrong with that, we are all powerslaves. we want sparks to fly from our fingertips and thunder to echo across the valley at our command. like a friend of mine always says; we`re all gonna die.
keep it up though, your obsession is our meeting place. we will continue to comment in unpredictable ways and lose the thread and get it completely wrong……like gods.
May 13th, 2006 at 12:45 am
Depeche Mode - he he. Talk about a long time ago.
May 13th, 2006 at 4:17 am
When you’re little they teac you that if you’re ever lost in the woods, don’t try to find your way out.
Just sit down and wait for someone to come to you.
May 13th, 2006 at 4:17 am
*teach
May 13th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Read some stuff by Bonnie Guant available at www.swartzbooks.com, and of course www.messianicdruid.blogspot.com. Everything is as it should be at this instant, even our spiritiual dyslexia will be healed. Isa. 53:1-16
May 13th, 2006 at 11:06 am
(The goddess Tori Amos did such a beautiful cover of that song)
Well, the ineffable is dandy and all but this world would be kind of boring if we sat like silent monks all day in meditation. Thinking and writing about the mystical and other crap stimulates the brain and makes the mind grow.
I visit sites such as this one to be thoughtfully entertained. In my life reading about weird things and reading creative perspectives are stupdendously enriching. But my God, I have no desire to obsess, obsess over verbal things or be stuck inside the disgusting abject world of intellectualism. I actually feel sorry for philosophical people who are looking for truth and are loosing sleep over it.
Words I daresay, are ultimatly a stupidly magnificent part of being human and keeping oneself amused. Food, water, and ammusement are the basic necessities of life. There was this odd French fellow named Jacques Lacan who I somewhat detest for being such a grotesque bore (reading him in my community college class). Lacan said a human being is a “creation of its use of language.”
Anyways blablabla lalala! I say read Lewis Carroll who was a very weird dude.
May 13th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
“I’m waaaiiiting”"
May 14th, 2006 at 6:07 am
Tim, I think that writing about ideas, concepts, helps to strengthen those idea. By laying down words we make ideas concrete and formed. If we all possesed higher abilites maybe we would communicate with images and thought - but we can’t do that (at least not yet). So, we must use what we have to share our ideas with each other.
I think that the more you write or talk about a subject, the more you immerse yourself into it then the more knowledge and inspiration for that subject will come your way. The truth is there to be expressed (an more importantly communicated) in whatever way we are capable.
May 14th, 2006 at 10:29 am
I feel exactly the same regarding that word-experience paradox. It got to me a lot when I’ve been writing my more recent stuff. I kind of get round it by the constant advocation of being/experiencing in my writings, but it’s still quite a tricky mouse trap.
May 14th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Hey, all we got is these stinking words, so go ahead and use them. Sometimes when you feel like you can’t come up with the bestest of wordisms on your own, then borrow someone elses. Just today I made a post where I spread some light simply by quoting someone else.
I am never ashamed to say that the single author who has done the best job of expressing the inexpressible was a Ghost. Imagine that?
The following was written by a Ghost named Seth. It does as good a job as anything I have ever read in attempting to verbalize the God concept:
“If you prefer, you can call the supreme psychic gestalt God, but you should not attempt to objectify him.
What you call God is the sum of all consciousness, and yet the whole is more than the sum of Its parts.
He is not one individual, but an energy gestalt. He is a psychic pyramid of interrelated, ever expanding consciousness, that creates simultaneous and instantaneously, universes and individuals that are given duration, psychic comprehension, intelligence and eternal validity.
Its energy is so unbelievable that is does indeed form all universes; and because its energy is within and behind all universes, fields and systems, it is indeed aware of each sparrow that falls, for it is each sparrow that falls.
Dimly remembered through what you would call history, there was a state of agony in which the powers of creativity and existence were known, but the ways to produce them were not known. All That Is existed in a state of being, but without the means to find expression for Its being. All That Is had to learn this lesson, and could not be taught. From this agony, creativity was originally drawn, and its reflection is still seen. All That Is retains the memory of that state, and it serves as a constant impetus toward renewed creativity. Desire, wish and expectation, therefore, rule all actions and are the basis for all realities. Within the dreams of All That Is, potential beings had consciousness before any beginning as you know it.
In Its massive imagination, It understood that the cosmic multiplication of consciousness could not occur within that framework. Actuality was necessary if these probabilities were to be given birth. All That Is saw, then, an infinity of probable, conscious individuals. These probable individual selves found themselves alive within a God’s dream and they clamored to be released into actuality. All That Is yearned to release them and sought within itself for the means to do so.
Finally, with love and longing It let go of that portion of itself, and they were free.
The psychic energy exploded in a flash of creation.
All That Is loves all that It has created down to the least, for It realizes the dearness and uniqueness of each consciousness which has been wrest from such a state of agony. It is triumphant and joyful at each development taken by each consciousness, and It revels and takes joy in the slightest creative act of each of Its issues.
All individuals remember their source, and now dream of All That Is as It once dreamed of them. And they yearn toward that immense source… and yearn to give it actuality through their own creations.
Now in the same way do you give freedom to the personality fragments within your own dreams and for the same reason. And you create for the same reason, and within each of you is the memory of primal agony– that urge to create and free all probable consciousness into actuality.
The connections between you and All That Is can never be severed, and Its awareness is so delicate and focused that its attention is indeed directed with a prime creator’s love to each consciousness.
All That Is knows no other. It does not know whether or not other psychic gestalts like Itself may exist. It is constantly searching.
All portions of All That Is are constantly changing. All That Is is constantly seeking to know Itself, for seeking itself is a creative activity and the core of all action.
You, as a consciousness, seek to know yourself and become aware of yourself as a distinct individual portion of All That Is. You automatically draw on the overall energy of All That Is, since your existence is dependent upon it.
The portion of All That Is that is aware of itself as you, that is focused within your existence, can be called upon for help when necessary. This portion of All That Is looks out for your interests and may be called upon in a personal manner. A psychic gestalt may seem impersonal to you, but its energy forms your person. “
May 15th, 2006 at 6:30 am
yeah, why not? other words of men have gone before and been prophetic. a psychic gestalt is another equally valid way to describe the process. like valis. personally, i like crom, the god of conan. crom had distain for every man and left no illusions in the minds of men to beg and scrape at alters and in churches. if a creative energy is all around us that takes care of everything then we are free just to live.
unless you are bound up with guilt.
May 15th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Language is power.
I’m a word sorcerer.
Treat writing like magic and it will reward you.
May 15th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Beyond Words
These are but words, conveniences.
The map is not the territory.
Insignificant, significant
Sides of a coin
Toss it
High into the air
Watch the stars
Dissemble
Satellites inch by
Outside Earth’s blanket
Millions of years flash by
In blinks of light
Words can but clumsily
Grasp at the known
The agreed upon parameters
Stories we yearn to be told
Await a lexicon
(c) May 13, 2006 Laurie Corzett
June 13th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
[…] Overall, it’s a fun project. I am getting into this whole fiction-writing thing as another avenue to explore weird esoteric sorts of truth. I’ve been finding more and more in my personal research that you end up hitting a certain wall when you’re looking for the truth. A big part of that is that mystical truth or whatever you want to call it is ineffable. You can’t quite capture it with words so much as you can sort of set up words as a sieve for it to pass through. And in a certain sense, it doesn’t matter if you use the platform of fiction or fact as your vehicle cause you end up with similar results. […]