Uncle Ned’s Strange Words
We all assume that words are tools; tools which may be used to communicate, or even to control, although in Uncle Ned’s experience, control is mostly an illusion. Words like some we considered under Bad Words, of deception, persuasion or command, may well build empires, but even the most persistent empires eventually collapse into chaos. But just maybe words can also be used to build or discover something completely different than empire.
Controlling words may be big like a club is big (perhaps like esoteric), or they may be deceptively small (see Little Big Words). Yet there are also words which challenge definition or description, in other words, words which seem to leave us without, well, any more words. These words fall into that space between understanding and misunderstanding, in the realm of mystery. Yet we continue to use these words because, even when understanding fails us, or maybe especially when understanding fails us, we somehow can’t help but keep on trying; trying to reach out to each other, perhaps beyond each other; to gain even a toehold in a land beyond the furthest imaginings that could possibly be expressed in mere words.
No, a toehold will not do. We use words because the toe which touches that shore cannot stand alone. We share strange words that we may hope and that we may live.
paradox
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