Can Words Kill a Subject?

Posted on January 15, 2008
Filed Under Awareness |

There are many experiences which are very difficult to put into words. How do you describe a dream, or sex? How do you describe holding your baby daughter for the first time? Some people are more gifted with words than others, but even then their skill is often in the creation of metaphor, allegory and symbolism.

At what point does a subject which relies upon the use of those systems of language, become a dogma? We may be able to create words and phrases which neatly fit an experience. Yet if a person hasn’t had that particular experience, how useful then are words which describe it?

This is actually something I have struggled with for a very long time. I have sat all too often on both ends of this scale; at times maddeningly trying to decipher someone’s words into something meaningful and useful. At other times, crazily pulling words and phrases out of the air in a fruitless attempt to explain something I have seen, felt or experienced.

I have found there are many experiences which don’t require words. Two fathers can stand in mute awe and share the experience of a new-born child, without even a single word. But it doesn’t always work that way - not all experiences are universal, and not all perspectives are unequivocal. It is these cases where words can often do the most damage, especially when those words become a dogma; often mindlessly repeated, yet rarely understood.

How do we move past this seeming barrier - to a point where we can clearly and concisely share an experience with anyone we may choose, in a manner they can clearly understand?

I don’t know. Perhaps there is value in this inability, it allows for individuality and uniqueness. Even though the inability to clearly communicate something can be a source of utter frustration, the discovery of a new experience can never be given high enough value.

I am left with two considerations on this. One; we are unique individuals, and therefore have the capability for unique experiences and perspectives. Two; if we try too hard to communicate a particular experience, we run the very real risk of creating a dogma, and killing the essence of that experience.

I am sure there must be other ways of looking at this?

Comments

2 Responses to “Can Words Kill a Subject?”

Attila Borcsa on January 15th, 2008 11:16 am

The subject is of great interest for me too. I am glad you wrote about this, excellent post!

A few comments. It is a basic rule in analytical psychology that you do not tell your dream to everybody, except your therapist. Especially if you feel enthusiastic about it, having the impression that this particular dream is of great significance. I would say it goes the same way with other experiences that fell under the category of relevant for one’s self development. Those, like significant dreams, are “charged” for helping you and you alone. Of course, I am not saying that you should never communicate them to other people. Like in the case of the therapist, there are people who can really help in assimilating those experiences, even with the simplest feed-back for just an ‘objectivation’. But choosing the right people for this is not easy, holding it back until you find them is even harder.

I like it how you put it. “There is a value in this inability”. Good point!

Regarding the dogma thing, I am not too worried about that. Remaining at the analytical stuff, maybe the dogma is good in helping others to project their unconscious “to be discovered” experiences onto a canvas that more or less suits those. This, of course, only from a strictly self developmental angle.
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Dave on January 18th, 2008 8:52 pm

I’ve always felt like we are all plagiarists. In order to communicate ideas, we must learn how to deliver them, we learn by watching and emulating. We relate because we have thought it, or done it too. Even when our experiences don’t jive identically, we can still borrow from our own experience which is likely so similar, that if take an adequate amount of time to really truly contemplate something, we can always find a way to relate. It becomes dependent almost wholly on our relative mutual desire to relate. But yeah, I have had these feelings too. Sometimes, it feels like every single idea in my head is played-out, cliche, overdone, stolen. This extends into my language as well.
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