In loving memory of Terence Mckenna.
October 30, 2009
“Say what you mean and mean what you say.” - Chesire Cat (Alice in the Wonderland)
Language plays a vital role in constructing our perceptions of reality and the structure of the world we live in. The perfect combination of words can trigger a picture in the mind’s eye; we are ultimately trying to get the listener to see what we mean. And impeccable language has the power of forming a visualization of the message that the communicator is attempting to illustrate. That is the goal each time we try to communicate a notion or description. We plant words in the listener’s mind in order for the words to develop and flourish into a full-blown illustrative hallucination. When this is accomplished, people truly see what we mean. This is precisely why language is so essential in constructing our understanding of reality.
Because of the subjective-centric nature of reality, it is imperative to be able to truly understand people’s subjective perspectives. It is often apparent that we cannot confide in a listener’s ability to register a stream of communication; instead, it should be the responsibility of the communicator to be sure that they are thoroughly understood. Relying on people’s listening skills seems to be an apathetic approach of attempting to convey your message. Your subjective perspective matters and it is YOUR responsibility to have your perspective both, understood and respected.
My contention is that we should not rely on people’s lucid listening, because by doing so we are simply handing away the fate of our word. By developing a crisp form of communication however, we can cultivate a greater sense of control over the ultimate portrayal of our message. You can vividly express yourself using colorful language, or you can monotonously express yourself in tones of grey. It is your choice. It is your freedom of expression, but keep in mind that we are the masters of the fate of our word.
That's why it is so important to communicate, for all of us to put our best foot forward, to put our best metaphors on the table. Because we can move no faster than the evolution of our language. And this is certainly part of what the psychedelics are about: they force the evolution of language. And no culture, as far as I am aware, has ever consciously tried to evolve its language with the awareness that evolving language was evolving reality.
-Terence McKenna
What we are essentially doing is creating and building worlds of words; worlds of language. And it is the people who truly familiarize themselves with the powerful potential of lexis and language that are truly successful at projecting their particular outlook; in other words, they are “understood.”
As the late Terence Mckenna referred to in the quote above, evolving language is evolving reality. Each word we use is a choice, and it is the unique combination and choice of our words that determine the fate and eventual impact of our message. And it is crucial to note that the evolution of language begins with the use or disuse of a single word; as the ensuing example perfectly portrays.
I recently read Steinbeck’s East of Eden. In my opinion it provides us with what is possibly the ultimate example of how powerful a single word can be. The example lies towards the end of chapter 24; which, to me, is the most meaningful chapter of the novel. As the characters sip their porcelain cups of wormwood filled ng-ka-py (a drink similar to absinthe), the Chinese servant, Lee, begins to deconstruct the biblical story of Cain and Abel in a most exacting and fascinating fashion. Lee goes on to say:
The King James version says this—it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehova says, ‘If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and THOU SHALT rule over him.’ It was the ‘thou shalt’ that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin.
Then I got a copy of the American Standard Bible. It was very new then. And it was different in this passage. It says, ‘DO THOU rule over him.’ Now this is very different. This is not a promise, it is an order. And I began to stew about it. I wondered what the original word of the original writer had been that these very different translations can be made.
We then find out Lee spent about two years studying and learning Hebrew in order to expose his mind to an unfiltered interpretation of what the “original word of the original writer had been.” After two years of dedicating himself to the Hebrew language, he decided to finally reread the Cain and Abel story in its original language—Hebrew. I can’t stress to you the importance of his truth-filled realization. It goes:
Don’t you see? The American Standard translation ORDERS men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in “Thou Shalt,” meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—Though mayest—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?
There you go. The word timshel means “thou mayest.” The mistranslation of the word timshel to mean “thou shalt” in certain bibles had the power to program literal biblical interpreters into believing that God was ORDERING Cain; the word of God gave Caine no choice, his fate was doomed because disobeying God is simply an obnoxious blasphemous obscenity. Caine appeared to have no choice because of the simple mistranslation of one word; when in fact, the original Genesis 4:16 empowers Caine with free-will. It empowers Caine with a choice. The simple shift of words can manifest a new set of rules, a new reality for the literal interpreters of the Bible. “Thou shalt” and “thou mayest” is the difference of one word, but the difference in these words are the difference between worlds. So timshel, people! TIMSHEL!
But what happens when we fall into the land of the ineffable? When you’re point does not radiate? When language fails to exude the essence of your message? Language provides us with tools in order to attempt to link the effable with the ineffable. This is what is meant by pushing the boundaries of language; to further expand and connect the linguistic infrastructures of our infinite realms. This is why we need to take into consideration the fact that certain subjective experiences cannot be expressed using ordinary language. This is the precise reason as to why I am completely fascinated by the potential power of what the metaphor has to offer us and what the metaphor is really all about.
Again, as the late Terence Mckenna alluded to, we are collectively evolving at the rate of the evolution of our language and ideas. That’s why metaphors are so important to the evolution of notions and language. Metaphors allow for the unification of the material and the abstract. By linking together the material and immaterial, a linguistic type of node is created in order to invisibly reinforce the connectedness of the separate realities. It seems as if metaphors are a tool that language provides us with in order to link the previously unlinked.
As more people realize the importance of their subjective realities, more metaphors will splurge into existence in order to further propel the evolution of a more sophisticated relationship between the ‘multichotomous’ worlds that we live in.
In Kathleen Norris’s book, The Cloister Walk, the Gregorian mystic accurately manages to verbally illustrate the power of metaphors:
Metaphor drawn on images from the natural world, from our senses, and from the world of human social structures, and yokes them to psychological and spiritual realities in such a way that we’re often left gasping; we have no way to fully explain a metaphor’s power, it simply is.
The reason this realization is so important is because it is connected to a fundamental, “zoomed-out” truth. Norris points out earlier in the same chapter, “You build a world in what you say, words, as I speak them or write them, make a path on which I walk; language is a living thing.” I am certainly a believer in the power of words because I recognize that the essence of reality is made up of information. Information is always all around us (electrical, cellular, molecular, sensory, etc.) and language is exactly that, information.
Pushing the boundaries of verbal illustration plays a critical part in the evolution of language, and therefore the simultaneous and symmetrical evolution of reality. And that’s part of what the ZOOMDOUT Trip is about, to encourage a new-found awareness for language:
For all of us to put our best foot forward, to put our best metaphors on the table. Because we can move no faster than the evolution of our language. And this is certainly part of what the psychedelics are about: they force the evolution of language. And no culture, as far as I am aware, has ever consciously tried to evolve its language with the awareness that evolving language was evolving reality.
Until now… 0_0
http://zoomdout.com/
