Words, words, good for your heart ...
Words:
Like molecules, they're everywhere. Like air, they're invisible.
By the time you finish this sentence, your eyes will have picked up the pattern of lines and spaces, sent a message to your brain to be decoded, and you will have arranged the information into a cohesive message, ending with this little dot.
Within seconds, you will have transformed these little squiggles on the monitor into an understandable chunk of information. By the time you reach the end of the paragraph, you will have translated the message automatically, paying little attention to the process.
Words, like silence, are taken for granted. What are they, really?
A word is essentially a symbol representing an idea or a state of being. The letters that make up a word are also symbols, but only represent the sounds necessary to pronounce a word – words exist independently of their spelling. Literacy, or even having a written language, is not necessary for communication through words.
Therefore, the value of a word is not in its written form, but in the idea it represents. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Conversely, a word can contain a thousand pictures. A word is a tiny package of information, which, when released, can invoke all manner of impressions.
Words, like magical incantations, build bridges between one reality and another. They compress the environment, emotions, thoughts, and perceptions of one person (real or imagined) into a universal code. Used in this way, words are powerful – they can communicate a lifetime of experience in a short amount of space and time. They can also record permanently a thought, feeling, or command (such as in a written law). The drawback to this, of course, is that words can be interpreted quite differently than they were originally intended to be.
How does one make the most of words? Understand them. Whoever believes that words are cheap most likely uses them indiscriminately. In fact, words are priceless, with the power to twist reality as much as represent it. If you are a writer, you cannot afford to underestimate the potency of words; in fact, you must learn how to cultivate them - by observing, pruning and nurturing them, and eventually harvesting their fruits.
Like molecules, they're everywhere. Like air, they're invisible.
By the time you finish this sentence, your eyes will have picked up the pattern of lines and spaces, sent a message to your brain to be decoded, and you will have arranged the information into a cohesive message, ending with this little dot.
Within seconds, you will have transformed these little squiggles on the monitor into an understandable chunk of information. By the time you reach the end of the paragraph, you will have translated the message automatically, paying little attention to the process.
Words, like silence, are taken for granted. What are they, really?
A word is essentially a symbol representing an idea or a state of being. The letters that make up a word are also symbols, but only represent the sounds necessary to pronounce a word – words exist independently of their spelling. Literacy, or even having a written language, is not necessary for communication through words.
Therefore, the value of a word is not in its written form, but in the idea it represents. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Conversely, a word can contain a thousand pictures. A word is a tiny package of information, which, when released, can invoke all manner of impressions.
Words, like magical incantations, build bridges between one reality and another. They compress the environment, emotions, thoughts, and perceptions of one person (real or imagined) into a universal code. Used in this way, words are powerful – they can communicate a lifetime of experience in a short amount of space and time. They can also record permanently a thought, feeling, or command (such as in a written law). The drawback to this, of course, is that words can be interpreted quite differently than they were originally intended to be.
How does one make the most of words? Understand them. Whoever believes that words are cheap most likely uses them indiscriminately. In fact, words are priceless, with the power to twist reality as much as represent it. If you are a writer, you cannot afford to underestimate the potency of words; in fact, you must learn how to cultivate them - by observing, pruning and nurturing them, and eventually harvesting their fruits.
posted by Liz at 6:13 PM
1 Comments:
Words, words, they’re good for your heart, the more you eat the more you… wait a second, I’m thinking of something else. “In the beginning was the Word…and the Word was God…Through him all things were made…” Isn’t Word a funny sounding word? It almost sound misshapen to me. Werd up yo.
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