I. A Poem
Of The Word
Words used to cut me And bruise And beat me down Until I felt nothing. They used to be my solace, So that I might feel When I had the chance But not the ability. They served And injured, Yet I thought little of them. For words were hard To wrangle, for a time. But slowly they befriended me. And I, a reluctant companion Finally gave myself to them. Moreso to the Word – And with that To the hope of being One I strain And grasp at, Yet they now stoop to reach me.
II. A Note on the Tyranny of Language
As you can probably tell from the poem. I have been trying to get into poetry more recently, reading it, writing it (mostly in the form of songs), the whole deal. But, as I probably should have been able to guess, it has been rather hard to do. Poetry, apparently, is not one of those things that you just “get into,” at least it isn’t for me. I mean, maybe there are some people who are just naturally filled with an especially poetic spirit and from whom verse just wells up and overflows. However, I am not one of those people, and poetry, as much as I appreciate it, is something that requires a great deal of effort for me to create and understand.
Perhaps it is all the extra rules added to writing, like rhyme scheme and meter and what have you. But trying to write poetry specifically, exacerbates a particular tendency I have to get hung up searching for the perfect word. I say “exacerbates” because this is a disposition that I have in all facets of life involving language. I often interrupt the flow of conversations I am having with others by spending much too long searching for the right word to describe what I am talking about. I usually have a tab open when doing research online for articles I write that is specifically designated for looking up synonyms for words I initially write down but then decide do not think properly convey what I am trying to say. I even had to stop for a couple of minutes to figure out how best to word “interrupt the flow of” a couple of sentences prior. (I know, very meta.)
But never have I experienced the phenomenon of helplessly-searching-for-a-word-that-will-probably-never-come like when I try to write a poem. If I struggle to find the proper words in a normal context, I can’t even begin to find them in a context where not only the meaning of the word matters but how many syllables it has, whether it rhymes, and its general tone matter also.
And so, I have spent a considerable amount of time recently feeling hemmed in by language, hoping to find the word(s) that will bring about that deep feeling of completion that one experiences upon saying the proper thing but ultimately failing to do so. (Even here I am struggling to describe exactly what finding the right word does for me. “Completion” describes it in part but not fully. I think the proper word is atonement, but this is a hard word to use outside of an explicitly religious context.) This continued failure is what I am referring to in the title of this section as the tyranny of language. For it feels very much sometimes that it is not I who commands language but language which controls me. And after having noticed this phenomenon in one domain, it has begun to follow me around to every part of my linguistic life.
Trying to write a song?... not so fast! You can only express yourself in that way insofar as you have the words to describe how you feel (and you don’t really have those words do you)? Trying to help a friend who is struggling with something?... woah, woah, woah! You will only succeed in helping so long as you choose the right words to say to them (and be careful because words aimed at fixing problems don’t always validate feelings (and vice versa)). Trying to give a competent presentation at work?... hold your horses! You better be careful to use the right industry language and acronyms (because if you don’t, you’ll look like you have not idea what you are talking about and that will be bad for everyone).
You get the idea. I don’t need to continue with the examples. The general point is to highlight just how often our lives are controlled by the language we have access to. This is a very paradoxical seeming thought though, namely because in some sense it is language that even allows us to experience life and express ourselves in the way that we do. Without language there does not seem to be any sort of understanding of the world. It appears that language, if it is not the basis for consciousness full stop, is at least a major constituent in the consciousness that we value so highly in persons. And yet, it so often serves to underline the many ways in which we are limited as beings. It serves, in some sense, to both prop up our being and to limit our existence.
In this way, language is both the champion of our freedom and the purveyor of our confinement. It makes available to us the infinite and yet, continually restricts us to the finite.
[I apologize for the vague and fairly abrupt ending. If it leaves some discussion to be desired, that is because my thoughts on this subject are pretty incomplete. There are a lot of connections that I hope to make between this thought and others I have been mulling over, but I have not yet had the time to spend in making those. I hope to do so in the future and to write more about them.]
In the beginning was the Word. I enjoyed your musings about the frustrations of being limited in our abilities to adequately describe the experience of being human. I have read and heard said that the English language has a much more extensive palette for expressing the range of things we want to communicate than do many other languages. Your command of this palette is probably more extensive than that of most humans, yet, or because of this, you realize its limitations.
I think, in my limited capacities, that that is one of the great things about poetry. For me, poetry evokes experiences that there are no direct synonyms for. It stretches our abilities to share our understanding of this incredible experience of consciousness.
The wonder is not that our language is too limited, but that our conscious experience is too vast and layered to be limited by words.
Still, it is so valuable to share this experience that we must try. And then, in the effort, stand in awe as we behold Infinity. Keep writing...and musing!