A Lovely Shade Of Blue: Words, Words, Words
...Words can never present life as it really is. Memories are faulty. Two people come away from a conversation with different recollections of what was said. Stories change with each retelling. Removing an adjective can alter the meaning of an entire tale....
Claire George, employing persuasively readable words, comminicates some thoughts on words.
So much of what happens to a person in life depends on their ability to use words. A surgeon, living abroad, cannot work in a hospital until he learns the language of his new home. An intelligent boy leaves school with no exams because he has undiagnosed dyslexia. A young woman is overlooked at work because she is too shy to speak out at meetings. A street thug has no words in his head to understand the source of his pain so he throws bottles at strangers.
In job interviews and in application letters we are asked to represent ourselves in words. Years of life are pressed into the shape of a few sentences. In these situations whether we get the job depends more on our ability to describe ourselves than on the reality of who we are.
There is an unspoken contract between friends that the words they speak will always be connected to truth. Lies are only allowed when they protect feelings or keep surprise parties under wraps. Any person known to be a liar loses the trust of everyone. We do not want people to use words to show us false pictures of the world. When a person lies to us they take our eyeballs in their fists and they crush them.
Words can never present life as it really is. Memories are faulty. Two people come away from a conversation with different recollections of what was said. Stories change with each retelling. Removing an adjective can alter the meaning of an entire tale.
Historians and journalists create coherent narratives out of the messy flood of human life. They use words to present the past and the present. Yet the same past and present are so vast that no single person could ever understand them.
Words are a human creation. They separate us from the animals and they give us civilization. Because of words we have the great world religions. Because of words we know where we came from. Because of words we can ask for food and shelter. How could we survive without words?
People who cannot read or write or speak are not stupid. They simply lack full access to a tool that the majority use. Society discriminates against the minority by not accepting that some humans are better at non-verbal communication.
Words are kites that people fly in the sky. All around them nature exists independently of all signifiers of meaning.
