(A Third) Pithy Saying of the Day
Dec 20th, 2007 by Micah Tillman | 4 Comments |
(The other two being here and here.)
Words are windows.*
*(Words and expressions reveal different aspects of what they are about. So what you say to yourself reveals different things to yourself. And if you are sometimes OCD like me, you may find yourself using the same windows over and over again, and finding that [not surprisingly] you can only see things in one way [e.g., you can't find a solution].
So periodically we have to “break the cycle” [one of the greatest albums ever] by using some other windows. Perhaps the best thing to do is actually borrow somebody else’s [singing along to a song, for instance].
It’s not necessarily that the windows I find myself using don’t reveal how things really are. It’s just they only reveal one aspect of how things really are. So I miss out if I only look through one set of words or expressions.
Perhaps people who don’t have to deal with tendencies to OCD or depression won’t have any idea what I’m talking about. But we philosophers tend to be melancholy types, as [Pseudo-]Aristotle said [Problems, Book XXX.1].)
Words are birds, flying through the net of truth.
Great album. That, you, and Tim are the reasons I got through senior year without imploding.
Thanks!
:)
Madeline L’Engle wrote about a relative (a son in law, maybe) coming back from seminary and talking about “doing violence to language”
She was initially taken aback, but begin to consider the idea that this was merely a provocative way of expressing the idea that we have to challenge our ordinary ways of expressing and viewing thins.
I wonder if doing violence to language is akin to building a window where there was none before– or atleast opening up a shade that’s always been closed.
Mr. Salk–
*laugh* I have no idea what that means, but it sounds very cool.
Amanda–
And ditto to you and Tim for my getting through senior year! If you’re looking for fans of senior year, seems you’re not going to find them here *grin*
Jeff–
Interesting. Very.
I hear people talk about doing violence to language. I always thought they meant by that that someone was trying to do something with language that it wasn’t meant to do, or that other people wouldn’t realize was different than what they (the other people) thought they (the people doing the violence) were doing.
I, for instance, think someone would be doing violence to language if they presented “What’s the difference between a duck?” as a legitimate question.
And I think people who say things like “We invaded Iraq” or “We saved the French in WWII” are doing violence to language (because they’re usually trying to mix different senses of the word “we” together so as to make us responsible for what other people did, simply because both we and the people who did whatever it is happen to belong in some way to the same “group”/”nation”).
But I love the idea of opening up new windows or lifting shades. In fact, I think a truly great work of literature/oratory/philosophy is one that does just that — that gives you a new window through which to look, and through which you can see the world more clearly.