Language is limiting. I write, I read, and I write, I reread, I like what I read. Yet why does it seem like I am circumnavigating what the strong and clear mental image in my mind is? Why is it that I cannot seem to define my experience as it was through my eyes without having to alter it a bit? Browsing through poems in a poetry book I realize that try as I might, I will never be able to attain the exact picture the author is creating in his or her head, neither would anyone else who read my writing. Even Virginia Woolf stated in her novel, Orlando, that, "...Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces..." (14). Yes folks, we have been deceived by our childhood teachers who told us that we could write anything. The First Amendment has failed us, for how is there a freedom of speech when speech in itself is our prison! The truth is that we can write and say things that don't exactly hit the mark of the definite picture in our heads. This is the same with other forms of expression (e.g. art, music, etc.). The writer of a poem or a novel may have an extremely rich idea which they wish to convey to an audience: an image, a sound, a firework bursting within their craniums, yet it's as if they have gone mute and must sign the words they are looking for. It's something hard to accept, the fact that the only principal we have been taught to communicate with is in actuality, quite restricting.
This bothers me. Growing up in America I was taught that our country was one in which freedom ought to ring throughout the land. If our basic foundation is filled with holes, how do our forms of expression still stand? For example: When deeply reading an opinion piece in the news paper my brain begins to grasp the concept of what the author is talking about. My brain does this by connecting to similar images and/or sounds I think the author is depicting that I have seen in the past. This action can be both subconscious and conscious. But by doing this will I ever know what the author truly wanted to tell me? Sadly the answer is no. The experiences that I have had are unknowingly intertwined with the text the author has written. I will end up receiving and understanding a tainted version of the author's message, a message tainted by my own self. Language holds us in chains for trying to express an idea which cannot be fully explained with the words and sentences it provides to us.
Now imagine a more telepathic world in which ideas could be communicated just the way we want them to be, and then leave our brain to interpret it without leaving any holes that still need to be filled on the author's part. Ideas would be clearer, make more sense, and most of people would be more educated, critical, and understanding of what they are reading. We would finally be on intimate terms with the text as well as the author. We could receive a full picture of experiences, meanings, emotions, ideas, and more that the author has all wrapped up in one! People would finally get the chance to speak the truth of what they think and feel rather than the fluff of it by merely skipping around what truly occurred, which is what language causes us to do today. One may argue that though we don't understand what the author is trying to say, the holes make for better critical thinking. This could be true, but that is not the point I am trying to make! If you truly wanted to argue that point though, I would say that it depends on what the author wants from his or her audience. Does he/she want to leave the material through interpretation? Or does he/she want the audience to truly understand what they are trying to say, and to truly appreciate the craft of the novel? If it is for the second reason, then the use of language today would only lead the audience into bliss ignorance, making them think they know exactly what the author is talking about and why, with really only fragments of their own connections facilitating their opinion.
This leads to yet another problem. In Plato's Cave Allegory (As mentioned in my previous blog) the prisoners were forced to see a depiction of life through moving pictures across a wall with various sounds echoing in the background, they interpreted that life was one way when in actuality it is another (ex: A picture of a dog would be depicted on the wall, and a sound would come along with that, but it may not be a barking noise). None of the prisoners had ever seen the light of day. But when one of the prisoners was released and saw how life truly was as well as the sun, and was amazed. Just like the Cave Allegory, language right now is giving us a mere depiction of the event that truly occurred, it is up to our interpretation to find out what the truth (real life/the sun) of what the author really is trying to say. By using our interpretation rather than the true image or sound or feeling the author has allows us to create somewhat of a "fake reality" in which we only see things in how it relates to ourselves rather than what the true thing the author is trying to present to us. Our brain ends up seeing a connected world it has created, rather than the world the text wants you to see. That is why at a young age I was taught as a Muslim that the Qur'an was written so as to allow followers of the religion to have different interpretations of what it means. This also leads me to believe that many wars, fights, arguments, etc. about things said, things done, written, painted, sung, and more often then not are caused by the fact that language has been restricting the the speaker, painter, or author's ideas or thought in totality. Our language cannot truly define that of our existence, actions, and the complexity of our brains.
Let's take a silly example. In the first paragraph I stated how in Virginia Woolf's novel, Orlando, she said that: "...Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces." (14) Say I'm the author and I am trying to portray a certain shade of green. A color, like "lime green" or "emerald" just won't do,I'm looking for a forest green but with a tortoiseshell pattern due to alternating light patterns of the sun. It is a combination of.....now I must stop, there truly is no shade of green to describe the shade I am looking for. I see a perfect leaf in my head , there is a green quality about it that I want to depict, but I can only describe it. This creates murkiness of the readers understanding of the green I am trying to explain, it makes the reader quite confused. It is something that is beyond words and therefore leads readers to think of their own shade of green. Now lets say that this "green" was a controversial issue. Some people though that the green I was describing above was a lime green and forest green life, while others thought it was a sea green and forest green leaf. Who is right? Who is wrong? The viewpoint that it must be lime and forest green probably have a context and a connection in their mind ready for the view of green in nature. It is a view long influenced by experiences and events in their lives. This is the same with myself as well as the sea and forest green people. No one can understand why I see a certain shade of green in my head, I cannot understand why they see theirs. Due to this an argument breaks out and the true shade of green I was trying to communicate to my audience lives to be highly disputed in infamy. Lives are lost in some cases, voices unheard, because language didn't allow me to fully explain the green I was picturing in my head.
Though language is our prison, we must cope with it, no matter how much in may drive us insane (hence the teenage quote: "You just don't understand!"). We must deal with it until some sort of Utopian communication system is created. So far though we have been thoroughly lived in blind ignorance of the fact that language is imprisoning the human race has done a good job of describing what the author is saying to the point of exasperation. Though I cannot fully explain the green I am seeing, I can describe it with like terms such as , "forest green" and "tortoiseshell patterns" to give the readers some idea of what type of green I am trying to convey to them. To truly make an effort to reach Utopian communication, the author or speaker must provide experiences or a context that have caused them to think, feel, act, etc. a certain way. For example: I see the color green. When I was a child I admired the green, and my grandfather told me...etc. It would be a good idea for these thoughts to be general connections, that the majority of your audience can connect with as well, narrowing the chance of misinterpretation. In addition to that, the book, Life of Pi by Yann Martel is a good example on how to truly exemplify emotions the author feels. Though Pi didn't have quite an interesting or adventurous experience as he did in his "story version" he conveyed the emotions he felt, whether, he was angry, empowered, happy in an extreme version of a story of what really happened. The emotions are the same, yet the experiences different. I would recommend this method to musicians, authors, and speakers who want to focus on their emotions throughout their craft rather than the order of events and experiences.
Although breaking free of this prison seems impossible, one must live with it, and the coping that the human race is already doing through descriptions can be tweaked a bit, to make the cold and frigid jail cell be a bit more luxurious. Hopefully one day the answer to this problem will be found.
Now imagine a more telepathic world in which ideas could be communicated just the way we want them to be, and then leave our brain to interpret it without leaving any holes that still need to be filled on the author's part. Ideas would be clearer, make more sense, and most of people would be more educated, critical, and understanding of what they are reading. We would finally be on intimate terms with the text as well as the author. We could receive a full picture of experiences, meanings, emotions, ideas, and more that the author has all wrapped up in one! People would finally get the chance to speak the truth of what they think and feel rather than the fluff of it by merely skipping around what truly occurred, which is what language causes us to do today. One may argue that though we don't understand what the author is trying to say, the holes make for better critical thinking. This could be true, but that is not the point I am trying to make! If you truly wanted to argue that point though, I would say that it depends on what the author wants from his or her audience. Does he/she want to leave the material through interpretation? Or does he/she want the audience to truly understand what they are trying to say, and to truly appreciate the craft of the novel? If it is for the second reason, then the use of language today would only lead the audience into bliss ignorance, making them think they know exactly what the author is talking about and why, with really only fragments of their own connections facilitating their opinion.
This leads to yet another problem. In Plato's Cave Allegory (As mentioned in my previous blog) the prisoners were forced to see a depiction of life through moving pictures across a wall with various sounds echoing in the background, they interpreted that life was one way when in actuality it is another (ex: A picture of a dog would be depicted on the wall, and a sound would come along with that, but it may not be a barking noise). None of the prisoners had ever seen the light of day. But when one of the prisoners was released and saw how life truly was as well as the sun, and was amazed. Just like the Cave Allegory, language right now is giving us a mere depiction of the event that truly occurred, it is up to our interpretation to find out what the truth (real life/the sun) of what the author really is trying to say. By using our interpretation rather than the true image or sound or feeling the author has allows us to create somewhat of a "fake reality" in which we only see things in how it relates to ourselves rather than what the true thing the author is trying to present to us. Our brain ends up seeing a connected world it has created, rather than the world the text wants you to see. That is why at a young age I was taught as a Muslim that the Qur'an was written so as to allow followers of the religion to have different interpretations of what it means. This also leads me to believe that many wars, fights, arguments, etc. about things said, things done, written, painted, sung, and more often then not are caused by the fact that language has been restricting the the speaker, painter, or author's ideas or thought in totality. Our language cannot truly define that of our existence, actions, and the complexity of our brains.
Let's take a silly example. In the first paragraph I stated how in Virginia Woolf's novel, Orlando, she said that: "...Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces." (14) Say I'm the author and I am trying to portray a certain shade of green. A color, like "lime green" or "emerald" just won't do,I'm looking for a forest green but with a tortoiseshell pattern due to alternating light patterns of the sun. It is a combination of.....now I must stop, there truly is no shade of green to describe the shade I am looking for. I see a perfect leaf in my head , there is a green quality about it that I want to depict, but I can only describe it. This creates murkiness of the readers understanding of the green I am trying to explain, it makes the reader quite confused. It is something that is beyond words and therefore leads readers to think of their own shade of green. Now lets say that this "green" was a controversial issue. Some people though that the green I was describing above was a lime green and forest green life, while others thought it was a sea green and forest green leaf. Who is right? Who is wrong? The viewpoint that it must be lime and forest green probably have a context and a connection in their mind ready for the view of green in nature. It is a view long influenced by experiences and events in their lives. This is the same with myself as well as the sea and forest green people. No one can understand why I see a certain shade of green in my head, I cannot understand why they see theirs. Due to this an argument breaks out and the true shade of green I was trying to communicate to my audience lives to be highly disputed in infamy. Lives are lost in some cases, voices unheard, because language didn't allow me to fully explain the green I was picturing in my head.
Though language is our prison, we must cope with it, no matter how much in may drive us insane (hence the teenage quote: "You just don't understand!"). We must deal with it until some sort of Utopian communication system is created. So far
Although breaking free of this prison seems impossible, one must live with it, and the coping that the human race is already doing through descriptions can be tweaked a bit, to make the cold and frigid jail cell be a bit more luxurious. Hopefully one day the answer to this problem will be found.
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