The ability to be vague.

A quicker, seriouser post.

I began to remember last night, or this morning, at 5am, just how hard it is to understand that words, as signs, really don't exist as certain, concrete, real things. The things that words are meant to signify when they come out of our mouths are not those words; those words are not those things. It becomes especially tricky when we try to describe feelings, to name the pit in our stomach, the pains at the back of our eyeballs, and where those things come from. It is hard to understand people's irrational experiences, things that only exist emotionally. Language, after all, is a rational thing. It aims to give order. It has to harness. There are times when language is useless and should not be attempted. But more than that, perhaps life is too disorderly, the chemical snaps that are our emotions and thoughts too indescribable to be contained in bursts of air, and maybe we do better to remember that sometimes and just live and feel. We don't always need to name things, I tell myself. I hope I can remember.


Good Names of the Day

. . .



Bad Names of the Day

Love
Hate
Like
Sad
Sick
Enjoy (I often use this one when I serve people their food, and it is almost always accompanied by a sagging exclamation point)