On Language

“It seems fitting to begin my quest, my journey, my life with a question towards language. I don’t expect to hear an answer that reveals some overlaying purpose, but rather, a revelation of what it is and its limitations, much as many a mind have approached reason. How is it that our minds are capable of this convincing illusion of freedom? We observe the outside world and create models, representations only understandable by our own minds. We have laid down plastic sheets, thrown them over existence-pure, to separate ourselves. It seems that in the action of divorcing ourselves we are truly ‘free’ in the sense of free , but it has been whispered to my ears, that life loves to lie. Perhaps it sounds odd, that life loves to lie, for ‘life’ or existence holds nothing. No drives, reasons, emotions; nothing. And life itself does not lie, but rather our minds are riddled with traps, littered with devices-secret that distort the information we perceive. It is not life that lies, but our minds that shift the world into lies, or what we should call lies. These lies are a result of a loss in translation, one might say; from existence to thoughts. Language is my topic here and I promise that’s not a lie. I just have too much to say, all the time. These ‘devices’ or traps I speak of are not so much conscious creations or organizations, but rather the natural result of the shaping of the human mind over such a period of time that helps hide the shifting. Language has defined our minds in such a deep level, so long ago, that we often forget. no fault of yours or mine, it’s hard to remember the deeds of men we have never met. Before reason, there were words. This simple fact is a part of us at constant conflict with the ethereal, whimsical, dreamy, wishful part of us we can ascribe the title of mind, or soul. In the battle of transcendence and facticity, language is the General of The Armies of Fate. We may not escape his influence and control and we pay homage and respect to him, even with our curses. General Language is much in the same position of God (and it should be noted there is nothing ‘special’ about Language, for he is simply filling a position created by the development of the human brain and mind. He has no divine right, and yet looks God eye to eye. Language may be the General, but even he bows his head in recognition of the higher power, The Past, which is the fighting spirit of all the warriors of the Armies of Fate) in that he has dismissed our absolute, ultimate freedom, replaced it with the facility of picking options laid out, and left it under the same name! Language, however unsatisfying and weak we may wish him, has our interests at heart (for he lives on only through us). let us not discount his strength or lucidity even though he is in the business of magic-making and illusions; he sees in us the seed of anxiety, that, if watered under the clouds of despair, he so fears, would flower into a great,arborous monstrosity, draining our life and passions and happiness and Language himself! This does not make Language into a Satan figure by the least. He is simply embracing, and choosing rather, a life of facticity for us, and thus himself. He wants to use every power within himself to prevent a great evil: the evil of anguish. Who are we to judge such a subjective perspective as his? May we not damn him, before examining what such damnations imply: a destruction of all postulated values. We cannot judge his acceptance of illusion making, so long as he is lucid, which it would appear so, until the point that it infringes upon our lives, in which we may safely refuse his aid. he is fighting passionately to save women and children, but that is not my fight, nor the cause of those I call brothers.”