Life, actually…

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WORDS, WORDINESS AND WORDLESSNESS

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The power of the word—printed, dictated or internet-conveyed—is exceeded only by the sometimes powerlessness of that word.

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Is the old expression “power of the printed word” just an outdated hollowed-out phrase?

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Also, have you ever thought about the saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me,” or roughly something like that?

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How can this be true? Words can fall limply to the ground or they can absolutely destroy an otherwise perfectly wonderful day. Depends on who spouts them under what circumstances and/or how they are heard by the hearer.

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One unkind or hostile word can often make me lie down and feel like a speed bump, assuming speed bumps can have feelings.

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Or, worse still, one unkind or hostile word or phrase can set me off like an overgrown firecracker and cause me to react in outrageous illogical ways. Don’t push my button!

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Gazing back through the ages, it looks as if nothing changes. The easily-accessible works and words of Plato or Montaigne or Vonnegut or H.G. Wells or David Grayson seem to support this idea. These thoughty writers talk in amazingly modern terms about the same problems we still mull over.

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They describe the feelings that still hover over me to this day.

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The same impossible odds against the prospect of changing the human race into something nobler—those odds are still at work.

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These wiseguys of old all talk about being human, and their situations seem not one whit different from ours. Evolution works incredibly and painfully slowly.

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So, what good are words, anyhow?

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Well, they certainly are of little use when you want to share them with someone who recoils from your enthusiasm in the same Pavlovian manner they learned to shy away from good literature.

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It’s hard to convince them that you and your words and words of long ago represent the same set of circumstances they encounter today.

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The great sticks-and-stones of history are still available. Through the ages, much has been said that is still true. People back then and people right now, do often have something to say.

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In order to understand words of yore, the narrative must be massaged and re-massaged each generation in order to remain understandable. Just because an oldtime author uses Thou instead of You-all doesn’t mean there’s no wisdom to inspire me. It just means I have to re-translate and update in order to embrace the wisdom and thoughtyness that is there for the taking.

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It is not so much the word that has power—it is the reader, it is the absorber and purveyor of that word who can revive it or destroy it for others.

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David Grayson said, “Nothing, I think, so inadequate as language: to express in words not made by oneself concepts clear only to oneself. Words worn threadbare, sizes too small! How stop a winged idea long enough to express it? Poor, inarticulate man.”

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Enough with my lecturing and ranting.

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I leave you with a word. Try to take it kindly. Try to take it personally. Try not to find a way to get mad at it. Cherish it. Make it yours. Own it.

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This is my word to you: Joy! Bring joy to your words—words spoken, words written. Like soft cottony clouds or sweet cotton candy, they are contagious. They act like bucket brigades, passing along special bits of joyful wordiness, joyful knowledge, joyful instructions for living life better and best.

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Polish those words into newly-gleaming objects designed to inspire and re-inspire.

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What could it hurt?

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Ascend from the speed bump

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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