Upon "Words" - A raw chain of thought -

I mostly learned how to speak english on the go, meaning by having conversations in it, or movies, music, books, etc, so usually I'd learn the meaning of a word by context. (Also had classes for years, but I wouldn't have come this far if I had no practical reasons to implement it as a language). I used to look up for words or asked about their meaning, only whenever they made no sense at all through context (or they could mean a multitude of things, especially when it came to adjectives), but now, since I got time on my side, I started reading a book and for a change I'm looking up every single word I stumble upon, for which I don't know the meaning without relying on context. It might be a word which I've already come across many times in the past and have understood by context, but now I want a clear cut definition. I want all of its definitions too.

I came to realise that something very interesting started happening during this process: I started using these newly acquired words in my writing effortlessly. "Well, duh!", you'll say. "Of course you do, now that you know their meaning." That's not the point though, my friends. The point is that my whole way of thinking of how to express something verbally - how to communicate my thoughts, my visions if you will - has already been re-calibrated, for not only has it affected my speech in english, but also in greek, which is very weird if you take into account that I already know my vocabulary in greek pretty damn well. It's an extremely rare occurrence that I come across an english word I search in an english-greek lexicon for which I don't know the greek meaning of its written equivalent already. Furthermore, what's more weird is that I haven't even been looking up these words from an english-greek lexicon this time. I've been getting their definitions in english.

When I write in english, I don't think in greek and translate my thoughts into english. I think in english. My thinking grammar is already set to english, a result of taking up this language from a very young age, because I actually had to use it. There might be some instances where my mind gets stuck and can't produce the word I'm thinking of in english, and that's where a lexicon comes in handy, because I only have to think about the word in greek and translate it, but what you know? Hah! This happens vice-versa when I'm writing in greek as well. My mind gets stuck upon a specific greek word -> I take a shortcut by thinking this word in english -> I look it up in the lexicon and replace. My mind works like a thunder if I let it be. Fast but lazy. Always looking for the shortest circuit.

Looking up, but also writing down the definitions of words in english resulted in creating new circuits I believe, and although this work is tedious and very fresh (I've only been doing this for 3 days now) it's already been proven fruitful. Some examples:

a) Juncture: I learned it out of context at some point in my life for whatever reason, but I only knew it means "a place where things join". Did you know it can also be used to express "a particular point in events or time"? I didn't. I wouldn't have thought of using it this way by myself. I love this definition. I came across many words, whose definitions can be used for expressing whole different concepts, other than their more practical meaning. This gave me new ideas on how to color my prose.

b) Abashed: The meaning of this word was crystal clear by the context in the scene I was reading. But then again... was it? It was "clear" just not "crystal". My unlaboured guess was that it meant "embarrassed" and although this might be a pretty close synonym (I thought the writer chose to use this word in means of flow or for unconventionality), it doesn't mean exactly that, which is very important for it means something way more specific of an emotion. It means "feel slightly embarrassed and uneasy, more specifically if someone gets caught lying or making a mistake", which was spot on in what was going on in the book's scene and the character's reaction in it. How I would have put it before this information came through? I'd either have written "slightly embarrassed" or if I wanted to get into details and highlight "why" my character felt this way, I'd have to also include the subjective reason he felt that way by explaining further, for example "Having been caught lying John looked slightly embarrassed..." although this "reason" might be already included in the previous happenings, just not spelled out, meaning that by reading the dialogue prior to what followed, by context, the reader already knows that John was lying and that his companion had caught him up doing so. In other words, "abashed" is a much more efficient word to use in this case. More elegant and saves you from iterating the obvious.

c) Peal of laughter: I never would have used this word this way. Or "peal of thunder". I didn't know you could do that actually. I always described such things by merely using "loud". "Loud this, loud that, loud: boring" and overused, since it can be used for multiple different reasons. Furthermore, a "peal" also indicates a reverberating and repeating sound. What a refreshingly unique word!

d) Hoodwink: to deceive/ to trick. What a funky word! Got to use it at some point...

Another interesting observation is that whenever I came about a word in a book, which is not usually used in verbal form, although I'd understand what it means, since I'd come across it various times through reading and have learned it by context, I came to realize that I would never use it myself. It's like my brain had inadvertently classified said word in a very specific folder when it came to its usefulness. It was classified strictly as an "understanding others" word only. My lazy brain, in order to keep things simple and fit for the occasion (when you immerse yourself reading a story you are only receiving information, it's a one-way-ticket) didn't even bother perhaps copying a word and placing it in the "personal dictionary" folder. The word would never get picked by me to use in a sentence, neither in written word nor verbally, because it simply didn't exist in the "personal folder" in the first place.

I have a theory and this is my personal observation and belief about ideas and concepts, which refers closely to the very roots of creation and conceptualization, as well as the very clever but ambiguous and very debated upon opening of "The Gospel of John" (John 1:1), which is that each of our "thoughts", every single "particle" that creates it, might come from the same source in their utmost primitive form and this source can be best described as "formless". Kind of a paradox, but hear me out.

John's 1:1 verse reads:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

In ancient greek, this reads as:

"Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, και ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρός τον θεον, και θεος ἦν ὁ Λόγος."

The word "λόγος" (in the greek scripture "λόγος" was not written with a capital "l" -> "Λ", I replaced it as such for clarification purposes), can be translated in english as "word". It's a word that survived through history and made it past the greek language reformations and it's used as the common meaning of this word up 'til today. More specifically, in greek it means "speech" or "the way one speaks", (At this point I should mention that "λόγος" is by no means the equivalent of "word" as in "words that create a sentence". The greek equivalent of such a meaning is "λέξη" -> "lexi", thus -> "lexicon"! ), but it also has another, also pretty common, alternative meaning. It also means "reason" as in "the reason something happens", "the reason for which someone reacts the way he does" for example. Furthermore, "the reason" as the equivalent of the word "the logic", in greek "λογική" comes from the root of "λόγος", thus the logic of the word "logic" and so on and so forth, etc, etc. Confusing, right?

Anyhow! By replacing one meaning of "Word" with the other, this text in greek can be also taken as:

"In the beginning was the Reason, and the Reason was with God, and the Reason was God."

This gives a whole new different perspective upon what John might have meant, doesn't it? (Linguistics, never seize to amaze me). Now, I know that there's a long debate upon what John meant, but I won't be jumping into the "religious" or academic points of debate behind it, for it would completely sidetrack my purpose of this topic, furthermore, I'm not into religion so I need to read a hell more in order to form a legitimate impression about such a matter and frankly, it doesn't interests me as much to do so. Not now at least.

Just like God, "reason" has no form. We dress it in pictures, sounds, words, whatever we pick as a most fitting and close representation we can come up with as we process it through our brains, who connects the dots seamlessly through a vast collection of "what we came to know" by endlessly absorbing information through our senses in a 3D or perhaps 4D world, if you place time into the picture as well, while quantum physics theorists promote "unseen" even "unperceived" new dimensions our latest ancestors wouldn't even have been able to conceive and express them through numbers and complicated axioms, in order to come closer and explain the everexisting paradox of existence itself, for what we are innately trying to produce and have been trying to produce all along, through philosophising and communicating our philosophies with one another throughout the millennia, is none other than the understanding of our very own selves. Cracking the code of our existence, of any existence, of God's existence, of existence of existence.

The pictures? The words? The music? Our actions? It's all communication, not the source of it. We can't even get close to the source, all the more touch it, although as sentient beings we are always connected to the receiving end of it. We first find a way to communicate our ideas to ourselves and then choose a platform to transmit it to others and that's why "art" is such a beautiful "word". It's been installed in us even before birth, it's in everything we do and gives us the freedom to be an even more aware and active part of creation itself, by creating things ourselves. "Art" colors "reason".

If I could explain how I perceive the root of my thoughts, their "reason", I'd say they're God. They're the same as everything else in existence. Mysterious and superunknown. Like a constant battle, dance, motion, call it what you will, of positive space in the negative and vice-versa. Like matter and the space between it. Like light and darkness. "God" is not a holly father, not even a "He". God is formless. It's everything and forever. It's The Reason and... the sun is out.

PS: I hope when I read this again tomorrow I won't feel like punching myself in the face.



"Oh, it's what I know, I've been slightly depressed" or "God is what I know, happy-, deep breaths"?