sometimes i feel like the entirety of language is onomatopoetic.
words that just seem to so perfectly fit what they mean...
stumble. seep. forest. echo.
i suppose it's just a lifetime of being immersed in the language. the collection of symbols that create the word "nothing" have always stood for emptyness and lack of substance, and so that collection of symbols comes to mean those things, starts to be those things...
the human brain needs to understand. we are built, neurally, to believe in magic and supernatural things, because the brain needs to make order out of the chaos of the world. we correlate information, group it, name it, even when a real connection isn't there.
name it. we think verbally more often than not, tend to be more comfortable when we can articulate our thoughts to ourselves. language is a vital and integral part of the human thought process, of human existance.
"nothing" comes to mean emptyness and lack of substance; but, even more and more amazingly, emptyness and lack of substance come to mean "nothing." the relationship is reversed... the label is an intrinsic part of the emotion, the experience, the reality of all those things that are are contained within it.
the eskimos, as everyone knows, have their some-dozen number of words for "snow." could they distinguish between those types of snow before they had the words for them? the danes have a word - hygge - which has no translation to english. the best i've heard is "the warm fuzzy feeling you get when spending time with friends." do we experience less of that emotion, since we don't have the word to explain it? comfort isn't the same, joy is closer... ever read stranger in a strange land? i think that's the book, at least... one culture (ours) is waging war on another, alien culture, and they don't understand because they have no word for war or hatred. no translation, no comprehension.
it's a chicken-egg problem, i suppose. can you have hatred before you have the word for it? of course. but can you understand hatred, can you know that you're feeling it?
i think the realization of self is dependent on language, on being able to make the subtle chaos of the world concrete by way of articulation.
but then, there are those moments when you know that words will never be enough to encompass the depth of what you feel, when the most eloquent you can be is smiling.
words that just seem to so perfectly fit what they mean...
stumble. seep. forest. echo.
i suppose it's just a lifetime of being immersed in the language. the collection of symbols that create the word "nothing" have always stood for emptyness and lack of substance, and so that collection of symbols comes to mean those things, starts to be those things...
the human brain needs to understand. we are built, neurally, to believe in magic and supernatural things, because the brain needs to make order out of the chaos of the world. we correlate information, group it, name it, even when a real connection isn't there.
name it. we think verbally more often than not, tend to be more comfortable when we can articulate our thoughts to ourselves. language is a vital and integral part of the human thought process, of human existance.
"nothing" comes to mean emptyness and lack of substance; but, even more and more amazingly, emptyness and lack of substance come to mean "nothing." the relationship is reversed... the label is an intrinsic part of the emotion, the experience, the reality of all those things that are are contained within it.
the eskimos, as everyone knows, have their some-dozen number of words for "snow." could they distinguish between those types of snow before they had the words for them? the danes have a word - hygge - which has no translation to english. the best i've heard is "the warm fuzzy feeling you get when spending time with friends." do we experience less of that emotion, since we don't have the word to explain it? comfort isn't the same, joy is closer... ever read stranger in a strange land? i think that's the book, at least... one culture (ours) is waging war on another, alien culture, and they don't understand because they have no word for war or hatred. no translation, no comprehension.
it's a chicken-egg problem, i suppose. can you have hatred before you have the word for it? of course. but can you understand hatred, can you know that you're feeling it?
i think the realization of self is dependent on language, on being able to make the subtle chaos of the world concrete by way of articulation.
but then, there are those moments when you know that words will never be enough to encompass the depth of what you feel, when the most eloquent you can be is smiling.