Living in the Shadows (A Stream of Consciousness)
Over the past month I’ve been underlining all the words I like out of the dictionary. I started doing this because I wanted to expand my vocabulary and put together a list of words that I could use as a reference. While I was looking up words and reading the definitions something dawned on me. I realized that words are almost like a shadow of reality and the definitions of words are the shadow of a shadow. What I mean to say is that words are simply symbolic representations of the things they stand for. Most people might be quick to remind me that I am pointing out the obvious, but I think that sometimes we forget that fact. I think that we put a lot of importance on words. We have words for objects, and actions and we also have words for emotions and abstract concepts and thought processes. How is it even possible for us to encapsulate the complexities of our thoughts and emotions with lifeless symbols?
With that in mind, it’s obvious that when we use language or words our understanding of them is processed in our minds. We spend a lot of time processing language, especially with the use of the internet and other technologies. The fact that people have been able start romantic relationships over the internet would mean that their connection was based solely on words and not on physically being with each other. The possibility of starting a relationship based on words seems crazy to me. It seems crazy that we are perfectly content living in a world of shadows and mental constructions rather than physically feeling, smelling, and experiencing the energy of the world.
A person could spend their entire life researching oranges, as an example. They could read about what it looks like, what it smells like, where they can be found , how they are produced, or any other aspect of an orange that can be mentally processed. Even with all the possible knowledge that can be acquired through research this person would in reality know nothing about an orange and may not even recognize one if they had come across it in life. They would have acquired a bunch of mental static during their research and produced their conceptual idea of what an orange is; but I don’t believe that is the same as knowing because this hypothetical person would not have experienced the true essence of an orange.
I think what I’m trying to say here might be easily summed up by something Bob Dylan said during an interview: “…we all think we know things. And, we really know nothing.”
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