words words words
Every word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a limited range of applicability.
- Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy
For those of us who may question the viability of a mate based on their propensity to over punctuate an email or cringe and mock when a text message comes up with a misspelling, the fallibility of language seems like a preposterous concept. I personally can spend an hour, two, maybe more writing and re-writing a simple email to make sure that the words I put forth express most exactly what I mean to say. I also refuse point blank to speak to people in a social setting over the phone until I have met them in person first. Email 'til the cow come home, Instant Message me if you must but trust that my phone's on vibrate until you and I have spoken face to face. Why? Because spoken word feels weaker than words on a page (or more realistically a screen). They aren't as solid, they can't be edited, and I can't go back and change what I've spoken aloud if it doesn't exactly convey my meaning. Add in the inability to gauge a person's face over the phone and I become a blubbering ball of babble. Which is why I just won't do it. And when I first meet someone my speech is guarded and careful. I will often compose sentences in my head before I speak them, and they may be reworked a bit before they actually come out. Essentially, before I trust you, I need to write my script in my head.
Even when I do finally find a comfort level with someone I talk too fast, too loud, circuitously. I talk the way I write: in rapid bursts of explosive output followed by bouts of contemplation and re-examination of the initial output. The luxury of the page being that the second phase can inform and shape the first. I can move whole paragraphs in front of others when I realize that the order will help the reader understand the argument. When I speak however, I get excited and just let thoughts tumble out of my brain in whatever order they strike me, sequitors optional. I find I have a problem where my brain will move faster than my mouth can keep up with which trips the tongue into saying words that are some combination of several, or nothing at all. This habit only adds to the confusion of the attempt at logical explanation. This then forces me into periods of quiet to sort out the jumble of word vomit that tends to lay before me. Because there are times even I don't know what I'm saying, I just know I needed to say it. It's a reinforcing cycle, not necessarily a negative one I suppose, but certainly frustrating to say the least.
My preference to write over speak has to do with control. It's the same reason why I like directing. The process of putting a play together feels a lot like taking the various malleable pieces of language, in this case language living in theatrical form, and editing and moving and expanding upon the various thoughts and ideas until they take a shape that I can recognize and relate to. Each sentence may be beautiful on its own but a director puts them together in a chain, hopefully a chain that strengthens each piece by giving it support on either side.
And more than anything words seem more absolute when written down. When I read an email there is no interruption, no stopping me before I make my point. The argument can be presented as I want it. But when I have a conversation, things that felt so clear or I knew so certainly moments ago get mixed up and confused and feelings that made me giggle or cry out in pain vanish under a withering glare or absentminded smile. And when I have to translate my definitive script through the language of myself it feels like something gets lost in the process. I don't have my map. So I just lose my course because apparently I can't keep the helm all alone.
So I prefer to send out my literary envoy to do my dirty work. I operate via a mode in which I can process before public viewing. It gives me time to re-evaluate what's going out into the ether. When writing a particularly emotional email or letter I will often explode on the keyboard, save my work and come back in an hour or a day and take a look at what's there. Many times I delete a lot of what was clearly an initial gut reaction that I'm glad I didn't communicate. Because that way I can go back and say what I really mean to say, or more accurately what the more composed and rational me means to say now that I've had a little distance. There's a buffer zone in writing that keeps my comfort level high. Ultimately there seems to be a perfect way to express myself and the luxury of writing is that I can have the time to get as close to it as possible. The right paragraph, sentence, word is out there waiting for me. I just have to find it. Writing lets me feel like I put my best foot forward, that I am my wittiest, my most adult, my most rational and logical self. The edited, distilled down, movie version of me. If only the live action Adrienne could deal with things the way her printed word alter ego could.
But.
There's always a but isn't there?
The alter ego. The perfectionistic tendency towards language. The monolith of absolute meaning. The idea that some how, some way I will convey exactly what I mean to say. Sure I'll get close to that when the audience is the imaginary one in my head. Those lovely little ideas of the people reading what I am saying are nothing more than shadows of the real people that I send them to. And while I'm not dissing the idea that taking time to be careful about how you express yourself can have its place in the world, Heisenberg reminds me that whether we're talking the scientific language of macroscopic worlds breaking down when applied to microscopic and quantum levels of examination, or our own inner thoughts and feelings applied to the thoughts and feelings of the inner worlds of those around us, absolutes are only their absolutest when they are applied to the range of data they were created from. In other words, what is clear to me will continue to be clear to me if I never apply it outside of my created realm. But while it may be that something is constant in my realm of existence, the only way to know if it is also true in another plane of reality is to test it.
And so, in honor of freeing myself from my self-created prison of language I won't leave you with an ending tie it together aphorism. Because really, "you" aren't anything but a construction of my own mind anyway.
So get out of my head you crazy freaks.
- Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy
For those of us who may question the viability of a mate based on their propensity to over punctuate an email or cringe and mock when a text message comes up with a misspelling, the fallibility of language seems like a preposterous concept. I personally can spend an hour, two, maybe more writing and re-writing a simple email to make sure that the words I put forth express most exactly what I mean to say. I also refuse point blank to speak to people in a social setting over the phone until I have met them in person first. Email 'til the cow come home, Instant Message me if you must but trust that my phone's on vibrate until you and I have spoken face to face. Why? Because spoken word feels weaker than words on a page (or more realistically a screen). They aren't as solid, they can't be edited, and I can't go back and change what I've spoken aloud if it doesn't exactly convey my meaning. Add in the inability to gauge a person's face over the phone and I become a blubbering ball of babble. Which is why I just won't do it. And when I first meet someone my speech is guarded and careful. I will often compose sentences in my head before I speak them, and they may be reworked a bit before they actually come out. Essentially, before I trust you, I need to write my script in my head.
Even when I do finally find a comfort level with someone I talk too fast, too loud, circuitously. I talk the way I write: in rapid bursts of explosive output followed by bouts of contemplation and re-examination of the initial output. The luxury of the page being that the second phase can inform and shape the first. I can move whole paragraphs in front of others when I realize that the order will help the reader understand the argument. When I speak however, I get excited and just let thoughts tumble out of my brain in whatever order they strike me, sequitors optional. I find I have a problem where my brain will move faster than my mouth can keep up with which trips the tongue into saying words that are some combination of several, or nothing at all. This habit only adds to the confusion of the attempt at logical explanation. This then forces me into periods of quiet to sort out the jumble of word vomit that tends to lay before me. Because there are times even I don't know what I'm saying, I just know I needed to say it. It's a reinforcing cycle, not necessarily a negative one I suppose, but certainly frustrating to say the least.
My preference to write over speak has to do with control. It's the same reason why I like directing. The process of putting a play together feels a lot like taking the various malleable pieces of language, in this case language living in theatrical form, and editing and moving and expanding upon the various thoughts and ideas until they take a shape that I can recognize and relate to. Each sentence may be beautiful on its own but a director puts them together in a chain, hopefully a chain that strengthens each piece by giving it support on either side.
And more than anything words seem more absolute when written down. When I read an email there is no interruption, no stopping me before I make my point. The argument can be presented as I want it. But when I have a conversation, things that felt so clear or I knew so certainly moments ago get mixed up and confused and feelings that made me giggle or cry out in pain vanish under a withering glare or absentminded smile. And when I have to translate my definitive script through the language of myself it feels like something gets lost in the process. I don't have my map. So I just lose my course because apparently I can't keep the helm all alone.
So I prefer to send out my literary envoy to do my dirty work. I operate via a mode in which I can process before public viewing. It gives me time to re-evaluate what's going out into the ether. When writing a particularly emotional email or letter I will often explode on the keyboard, save my work and come back in an hour or a day and take a look at what's there. Many times I delete a lot of what was clearly an initial gut reaction that I'm glad I didn't communicate. Because that way I can go back and say what I really mean to say, or more accurately what the more composed and rational me means to say now that I've had a little distance. There's a buffer zone in writing that keeps my comfort level high. Ultimately there seems to be a perfect way to express myself and the luxury of writing is that I can have the time to get as close to it as possible. The right paragraph, sentence, word is out there waiting for me. I just have to find it. Writing lets me feel like I put my best foot forward, that I am my wittiest, my most adult, my most rational and logical self. The edited, distilled down, movie version of me. If only the live action Adrienne could deal with things the way her printed word alter ego could.
But.
There's always a but isn't there?
The alter ego. The perfectionistic tendency towards language. The monolith of absolute meaning. The idea that some how, some way I will convey exactly what I mean to say. Sure I'll get close to that when the audience is the imaginary one in my head. Those lovely little ideas of the people reading what I am saying are nothing more than shadows of the real people that I send them to. And while I'm not dissing the idea that taking time to be careful about how you express yourself can have its place in the world, Heisenberg reminds me that whether we're talking the scientific language of macroscopic worlds breaking down when applied to microscopic and quantum levels of examination, or our own inner thoughts and feelings applied to the thoughts and feelings of the inner worlds of those around us, absolutes are only their absolutest when they are applied to the range of data they were created from. In other words, what is clear to me will continue to be clear to me if I never apply it outside of my created realm. But while it may be that something is constant in my realm of existence, the only way to know if it is also true in another plane of reality is to test it.
And so, in honor of freeing myself from my self-created prison of language I won't leave you with an ending tie it together aphorism. Because really, "you" aren't anything but a construction of my own mind anyway.
So get out of my head you crazy freaks.
posted by A at 8:02 PM
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