On words

(See also "Poet's Folly")

Written extemporaneously at 1 a.m. on 2 February 2012.

To me, words are like water: fluid and free-flowing. Place your partially cupped hand in a basin and water will run through your fingers—run away from you—with such ease; try to contain what you scoop out and you are left with but a paltry amount of what you original wished to extract. And like this words flow freely in my mind. Trying to capture and lay them down into a more enduring existence—to tame them, as it were—is sure foolishness, or at least, a naïve endeavour.

Words are the intricate veins that comprise the arabesque that is my Reality. They are at once undefinable and redefinable, arbitrary and protean. My words are the medium through which my experiences can be imparted—to others and even to myself. One word is enough to damn or exult a man—and one word is not. A person's entire lexicon could describe the feeling of listening to a most moving piece of music—and an entire lexicon could not.

My Word takes me to places and brings places to me, places that are vast in meaning and yet escape meaning all together. It is into my Word that I compact what I know and wish to know. I create, demolish and transmute by my Word. Were my Word and I juxtaposed, the difference between the two could not be conceived, for it is inconceivable: I am my Word and my Word is I.