Prolixity

Words, words, words. The world is full of words. People talk, talk, talk. What are they saying? It’s hard to say, for their words disappear in words.

Everything has an essence; a point; an it. Everything else is elaborations; extensions growing out of the thing like long tentacles searching for more ways to repeat while getting farther and farther away from itself.

The thing is just the thing. Raise it to the light and look at it. That is it. No words are needed. “What about it?” you ask. What? Don’t you see the same as I see? Don’t you see the… And then I have to explain, and the thing becomes blurry. The light fades.

An idea you have in your head is not long-winded. It is there immediately. You grasp it in a flash; it is clear and obvious to you. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could share our ideas directly with others, that the concept in our mind could be transferred unimpededly to them, and we could relish it together. Instead we have to go the long way by means of an imperfect language, trying to translate our thoughts into petty words and continuously failing.

The fewer words are needed to convey a simple meaning, the more accurate it will be, for then the distance from my thoughts to yours is shorter. When two people know each other well, one word is sometimes enough to convey an entire idea. Silence says the rest.

Instead we are strangers to each other. We desperately try to talk to conceal our insufficiency. We can’t share the important ideas in our minds, so to escape the loneliness we simplify and trivialize and talk on the surface. When even that fails to connect us, we add more and more words in the vain hope that the sheer quantity will bring us together. But the more we talk the farther we get from our meaning, and the idea, if there ever was one, disappears in a cloud of words.

Shut up!

https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2020/06/25/your-daily-word-prompt-prolix-ydwordprompt-June-25-2020/