Sometimes, when I don’t want to write, I find it helpful to not really “think” at all, and to just sit with my eyes closed and type the words that come to my slow brain.
Do words come from somewhere? Where do they come from? What are they? Words are ideas or… they are containers of ideas. They are poor, hole filled containers for ideas that leak out like water from a leaky boat. And yet, they are the only containers we have. No that is not true. We have images. Images contain ideas. But they contain them the way banks contain money – guarded and locked away. You need special credentials to get the goods out of the vault. You need to have studied much art to be able to see the deeper meaning behind the artist’s work. But once you know what that meaning is, it is clear, beautiful, and complete. Words are not the same.
Words are messy, sloppy, and wonderfully accessible things, aren’t they? Watching someone, such as yourself, communicate with someone else is like watching children passing water back and forth with nothing to hold the water but their hands. Words leak out everywhere. They get on the skin, clothes and in faces. The ideas you start out with, like the water, slowly leak out in the act of passing them to the other. By the time your ideas reach the hearer, half of them were lost in transmission.
Sometimes, your life depends on the other person receiving the full amount of water you start out with. They must understand everything you intend to say, or you will die. Or your marriage will end. Or you won’t get that job. You squeeze your proverbial hands together tight, moving them slowly as you try to transfer the soul of your idea into the open palms of another. And, you hope, they are squeezing their hands just as tightly, just as focused on catching what you pass to them as you are of passing it.
Sometimes, communication is more like a water fight. You playfully toss handfuls at each other because it’s fun. And you don’t mean anything by the silly jabs and insults except to show that you care, and you are enjoying the moment with them.
Other times, like in great works of prose, poetry or fiction, the water of language is frozen into ice, and masterfully carved into an exquisite sculpture. Words, themselves, become the substance, the ice, the stone, the wood, the paint, which the artist uses to create something very much like an image. Not an image for the eye, but for the imagination.
Words are vibrant, lively, and richly relational. They are drama incarnate. Imagine how dull life would be if you could merely blink, and everyone would instantly know what you intended to communicate.
They are also well attuned to our flawed natures. How many times have you wished you had not said what you said, only to be happily surprised by the fact that your hearer did not actually understand what you meant by what you said? The capacity of language to be imperfect, can act as a grace to cover our imperfect thoughts. Just imagine what it would be like if you could merely blink and instantly know what everyone else is thinking. What a frightening world that would be.
Enjoy your words. Consider them. Know when you need to squeeze your hands tight, speak slowly, and carefully. And know when to not care so much and relax. Be grateful that others can’t read your mind. And that you can’t read theirs. And know when silence is needed.