[lit-ideas] The Purpleous Of Langwich
- From: Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Miriam Rachels <greatestnumber@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:13:30 -0500
What if I were to say to you: "There are no words to express how I felt at
that moment." What would that mean to you? That I must have a limited
vocabulary? That there are experiences beyond the scope of language to
express? That I'm just being a Drama Queen? That I have a limited
imagination? That I might be retarded? All of the above?
Like all of us I have indeed experienced moments of awe, of horror, of
sadness and sorrow, of self-revulsion, of unexplained elations, of fury and
anger and self-destructive urges, of mercies that melt me, of tendernesses
that embarrass me. Emotions, that is, that language seems hopelessly
inadequate to convey. A horse is a horse, of course, and we know that
because the word "horse" completes itself, even if it's name is Mr. Ed. In
such outer-world instances language shines with ineluctable meaning. But in
the diaphanous interior land of ourselves, language is only a shadow among
shadows of what is meant.
JL loves language in ways that are almost as alien to me as is chess. I
find his fascination with language fascinating -- up to a point. And it's
not a very sharp point : ). Th(ought, I used to think, was the provenance
of language. No words, no thoughts. "But I was so much older then, I'm
younger than that now." I think Jesus said that. Or some god. Now I
believe that thoughts preceded language and that one day "presto-jockamo" in
an ape-thick anonymous female brain (if you don't know why female, you're
hopeless) it happened that a word suddenly manifested itself.-- perhaps it
was "apple" -- whatever, it was plucked from the thing that ever since has
been called "tree" and eaten by she and he -- grammar hadn't been invented
yet. I truly believe that was the first sin that condemned us all to die of
philosophy.
The ape-thick female brainy one, said to the ape-thick male one: "Apple
good. Eat." That did it. Language was on it's way to writing the Bible.
And all of Shakespeare's plays and, wouldn't you know it, even invaded
physics with its 3 quarks. So where does this get us? No where. There's
no where to get to but internally. Reminds me of that saying: "No matter
where you go, there you are." And who is that "you"? We each are,
I believe, the universe -- at least the only one we'll ever know. And when
each of us dies, the universe dies with us. The only good thing about death
is that you never ever know you're dead. One of the very most good things
about life is the encompassing of all emotions -- a way of being that
cannot be taught, it has no subject matter, is approachable only through
compassion, expressible only through poetic dialogue. This to me is the
crown jewel of Language. The greatest reward of being alive. On the
otherhand, there's war.
Mike Geary
all peachy and preachy in Memphis
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