Words.
We all use them. Our communicative currency. And
like currency, each country has its denomination
and value system.
And like currency, we all use it but few of us stop to think about it. What this piece of paper is, how it works, where it comes from. Where it goes.
An experience yesterday froze me in the middle of such a transaction, and the sense of displacement caused me to look closer at words...
We place them in sentences, paragraphs, blogs and letters.
We digg them, copy paste them, put them on christmas cards.
words and their meaning, that 100 years ago where owned by the few, which pandered them and clung to them like so much intellectual gold.
Now with technology available to all, words synonyms and antonyms readily available on online thesauruses, dissected and pinned. It's curious that language of everyday has not become more eloquent but rather, shorter, words diluted to their common denominator, substituted with signs ( & ) or butchered version of themselves. The defining factor being the ease of use, speed rather that content. Like one and five dollar bills we use words that don't require change even though we have the luxury to use 100 dollar ones...
Words are used and circulated, in ourselves and in our interactions, and like bills fray and tear.
A relationship is born and like a mint, produces words and phrases, I love you, I miss you I want you... and their value is great and their resonance strong.
And then from over use, or a loss of relationship value, the words, the same words become flat. A mere reproduction, unable to procure even the smallest of emotional goods.
Until as it stutters and ends, there is no longer any need or want to produce them at all.
and in our daily activities, we, word mints, produce words in enormous quantities.
inexpert craftsmen with inexpert tools we often find ourselves unable to produce
the words that reflect our meaning or the value we wish to transmit.
and so we embezzle and borrow other people's words. yet so often we find that,
for whatever reason, they are not the same when we use them.
It has happened to you. When you repeat a joke, and even though it was hilarious
when you heard it, when you repeat it, it falls, limp, on deaf ears.
Or those millions of pick up lines, and quotes, that sizzle and pop on the ear.
Then you replicate them, and as they escape your lips, and they seem lifeless, mere shells,
stripped of their content. As they fall, around you you can't help but wonder why, what
happened in the journey that cause them to falter.
Like currency, words don't have value in and of themselves. Their value is defined but what their
use procures.
It amazes me how less can be more, how a few words, subtly linked can resonate and move us.
So to end this meandering diatribe.
The words we make, are our own. They are extensions of us, our cerebral children, floating in
the ether or pinned to a page. Take a moment to wonder at them and look at what you
produce. It may say more to you than you think.
