The Fool's Word

Someone once said that words are a means of concealing truth. And this is not necessarily because the person who expresses the words is lying. If the function of words is to represent the physical world and its goings on, and the description about the world is what their primary objective is, then they naturally fall unto a lesser degree of reality than what they are describing.

When one describes something, they essentially translate the processes of nature into consciously analysable bits which have properties. But those bits are not on the same level in terms of reality than their physical counterparts. They are conceptual. And it is concepts where we have to start.

A concept is a thought. A process of figuring in our minds using symbols such as words, numbers or simple shapes. And every concept therefore about something that is happening is not the same thing as the happening. Like the idea of a tree is not a tree. And this is an important distinction.

Now, symbols can have a very powerful influence over our lives. We use them every day in all types of communication. Whether it is texting someone, reading a book, or simply thinking about something, we use symbols to do it. But it has proven to be too much of a good thing for us.

Because we get so hooked on symbols or signs and especially words that we forget the reality which they are pointing towards. And then we get angry and frustrated simply because we don't like the ordering of some letters on a screen or on a piece of paper.

How easily are people triggered these days simply when for example one rearranges the letters in their name? And this shows how easily hypnotized we get by words. They are designed to grab one's attention and keep the attention on them. Because they are highlighted from the general background. And this ties into our awareness I will delve more into at a later article.

Now, a word acts also as a sign. Because it is pointing or “signifying” towards something other than itself. Just as one cannot quench their thirst with the word water, they cannot grab the physical world through concepts. They reduce the world into a skeletal line of information about that world which we can then use and navigate more effectively with.

What is the meaning of a word is asking the same thing as what is it pointing towards. That is why for example life does not have a meaning in the traditional sense. Because it is not pointing towards anything. It just is. But we use meaning in different ways, and the literal meaning is the only meaning these days which seem to matter to us.

So our sense of the universe is a symbolical one at best. We are always living on the indicators and not what they are pointing at. This is even more apparent when you start discovering ghosts in your own language. Like for example the grammatical rule that all verbs have to have subjects.

That every doing requires a noun, something that is doing the deed. But anything in nature that can be labelled as a thing, a noun, can be expressed with a single verb. The Chinese language is a prime example of attributing verbs to processes. The point is, that there are operators and operations in nature. And so how does an inanimate thing, put a process forward? Well it can’t.

Furthermore, all words are labels on classes. It's like asking is it a mineral, animal or a vegetable. That is classifying. But if we cannot successfully class something in the world of nature, and describe it in those terms, we're labelled as talking nonsense. The whole category of things one cannot explain successfully in words is humongous. And yet these things exist.

And people are always arguing with each other over definitions of the words, instead of what they are intended to mean. And this reduces all philosophical discussions essentially to a game where everyone is arguing with words over words. And this is like turning the studio camera towards the screen through which the feed is coming from.

A dictionary is essentially circular. In that it is defining its own words with other words within that same dictionary. And that is why the Taoists had such a criticism of the Confucian movement known as Rectification of Names. They asked them with what words will they define the words. Because they knew it was all useless to pin words down according to a strict etiquette because they don't have an independent reality of their own.

We seek meaning in words because we seem to have lost it in reality. But we haven't. All it takes is one indicator towards it. Look, suppose one says “everything is an illusion”. Now a person depending on their background might dismiss its meaning entirely, or start thinking various ways in which it could make sense to their particular situation. But our mind, is what is there. Not the words.

But after saying that, the message intended might be taken the wrong way. Its meaning might be misinterpreted. And this is another problem with words. People project their own beliefs and assumptions into them and then make up their minds what they meant. And this should give some clue how subjective it all really is.

What a word actually is, is one tiny needle point at the edge of that subjective reality, which is pointing to something outside its domain. But we have a way of selecting these needle points which makes them highly useful to our ability effectively communicate with each other. But as a result of entertaining these symbols for thousands of years, we are utterly taken by them, to the point where we cannot distinguish the symbol from the reality. And the difference between them is very big.

What it all comes down to then is this: don't take these words seriously. Words are for separating things and events. But we live in a single event system, where everything is happening everywhere all at once. And the usefulness of words has proven to be successful to us as a species, but it has come with a price. The price of not experiencing reality to its fullest. And one has to wonder, whether there is something else beyond mere words.

T.F.