On the Nature of Words, part I

The search for a path through life

Photo: ice crystals, Tallman state park, Dec 22 2023

Yesterday, there was a conversation that, like so many other conversations about speaking and words in the Gurdjieff work, consisted of — among other things — the contention that one can't convey inner work with "just words."

It came to my attention, as a result of this commentary (as well as far too many other similar comments I’ve heard over the last 40+ years) that people don't study language or speaking much. Everyone just does it automatically and superficially. After all, it’s the one thing that comes most naturally to us, in terms of external manifestation.

Because they don't study language, folks don't understand what language is or how it works, and they ultimately discount its value and the meaning that it transmits: “talk is cheap.” More often than not, when people say that words can't express something, it's because they have never studied words and how to use them, and are actually poor at it. There is, among other things, nothing whatsoever original in them about words, and yet they think they understand them. Or, conversely, they see that they don't understand them, but have never made a good effort to do so.

Confronted with a brilliant poet, such as for example, W. S. Merwin, perhaps folks who can appreciate such material (because the part of them that use words isn't completely corrupted by laziness and self-love) realize what real power words can carry.

Yet still they don’t study words carefully themselves because they come so easily to them.