How powerful are mere words?
Words. Are they enough to convey how we truly feel?
One expects some cheesey so and so has written a ballad at some point about the shortcomings of words to express the torment in his heart and/or soul. Yet this 'shortcoming' of language is not only desireable, but necessary.
Firstly, if words were as effective as our senses at determining what was real and what was not, we would be able to fashion realities at the stroke of a pen. Words are less powerful than actual experiences, and it is because of this that we can read fiction without quailing in fear everytime mischief is afoot in a story. We seem to have a sense of checking if words match our idea of what is real - if they do not, they become fictional.
Imagine if words were so powerful at communicating a thought, or an emotion, that you could read a sentence and instantly feel the same as the author of those words. We would melt down in short order! Commands would become ultra-powerful, the word 'Stop!' would have us all frozen. Humanity would be torn apart by this hypersensitivity to language. This would actually make quite a good science fiction story!
Communication between humans is performed through the barrier of occupying different bodies and being different people. This prevents a complete exchange of information from taking place. For instance, I may feel profound sadness at a world event, but I am unable to directly transmit that sadness to you; I can only collect my thoughts and emotions and deliver them out to you in the diluted form of words (even the words I use in my own head might be diluted forms of the actual emotions present in my mind).
This inability to share absolutely how we think or feel is what grants us some degree of selfhood. The limited power of words is restrained by our occupying individual shells, which depend on their own secrets and a certain degree of isolation in order to remain individuated.
Let us take this to its conclusion: Suppose you and I were able to perform an absolute transferal of thought from one person to another. Would we then fuse into one consciousness? For there would be nothing preventing us from feeling and knowing the exact same things, and we would have no secrets or private thoughts and so the very word 'self' would be carried away into meaninglessness by our hyper-effective communications.
Anecdotally, you will hear people talking about connecting and becoming one consciousness and suchlike, although it is wise to question whether such a fate is desireable. If not, then the limits of our communicating with one another are just fine the way they are.
Language cannot immediately convey what we want to say, but this is no tragedy - it is a challenge! To be expressive is good, to have a powerful vocabulary and grasp of words allows us to make the most of this thing we call 'reality'.
To get good at this delivery of thought requires a lot of practice. The finest poets did not become so overnight.
Words versus Situations
Does the meaning of a word change?
Yes! Consider three audiences each watching the same play simultaneously. The first audience is utterly content in regards to biology. The second audience all desperately need to use tolietry facilities. The third (and most unfortunate) audience is slowly been boiled alive in the gallery. In each situation, the play being performed has not changed. The meaning of the text however is most likely to be lost on the audience that
Thus we are presented with two ends of a scale. On one side, easy comprehension of language and the ability to understand and appreciate it in a comfortably middle class environment. On the other end of the scale we have the nightmare scenario of inevitable doom and survivalism wherein the meaning of words that are not directly related to actual survival become negligible, and most terribly bourgeois things.
Can we not say, therefore, that words can have power in the right environment, but not in another?
The power of words, then, is ultimately liable to the situation in which they are uttered, read, or delivered.
This exercise in hypothetical quasi-philosophical indulgence was brought to you by Selim 'Selim' Talat
