Saying Some Thing

So many different ways to say—

Every moment of which we are aware includes the thoughts and words that are present. I like to call words "linguistic objects," as they stand out in our world, existing to sensory perception as sound. Thoughts, too, exist, and as such they stand out, and as such they are as real as anything else in our experience. 

When responding to a situation, a curse can fly to one’s lips just as rapidly as a prayer—and the words uttered in the way they are uttered cast their color over the whole moment. By thinking we are able to focus on the aspects of a situation which aren’t. Thinking gives form to what would without the aid of conceptualizing, without the aid of an organized system of representation, be formless. The same is so for saying, though the mark left by words spoken is more easily noticed. The great paradox of language is that it names only the part of the present moment it names, though it is meant to hold on to something in the future or past. But language, which exists in the present, cannot be of a form to fit these fabricated futures and pasts, as they are nonexistent, for all that exists is the present. Rather, these fabricated futures and pasts are formed fitting language. Language can only reflect or anticipate—so even if the words seem situated in the present reality, there is only so much that they say. Seeing as one cannot say what has never yet been said, (for having said it, it has thus been said), so we are never really saying anything about the future, as there’s not a thing to say anything about, but rather we say the future (or think it).

When we cultivate a careful listening to not just the words and thinking with which we are surrounded, but also the tone in which they are said and thought, we become much more expansive and powerful.

The slightest, quietest little words that show up in our thoughts almost unnoticed can affect us in remarkably deep ways. “So and so has got better things to do than call me back…”—a phrase like that can slip in so slightly that it could be mistaken as the whole reality, without it being realized that such a statement is borne of the particular elements of one's experience of the situation and one's presupposed notions, and is thus a part of a very limited and probably preconditioned understanding.

Suppose you are about to do some work. You might think: “Oh, what a situation I’m in…I’ve got hard work ahead of me…” which is a very different way of phrasing from "High ho! Off to work we go…" These are of course a couple of extremes, as there are countless ways of phrasing and framing one's experience in thought. These different sayings (thoughts) could all even occur very close to one another, in the same train of thought.

If the smallest little thought patterns have such power over us, how much more power we have when we realize this. Upon this realization we can begin to decide which patterns to which we habituate ourselves, simultaneously breaking free from patterns that had been unnoticed.

Much of our thinking is in a language with a vocabulary. Some thoughts seem familiar, as if they have been thought before. But even if we use the same words at surface, every thought beneath this surface of vocabulary is borne of this moment, and is thus what it is now, despite the resemblance to previous forms. This is a trick language plays on us. An aspect I have noticed which brings certain thoughts their familiarity is not just the concepts which words are meant to denote, but the very way, the tone, in which they are presented. When considering the tone, for instance, with which one might regard their listing off of errands to run, or the attempting to communicate approval/disapproval to a young child, or the preparation to go to an anticipated event, etc., we see how drastically different can be the effect of the same words when they are said differently. This difference in saying is marked by various factors in the situation out of which the speaking arises, including intention, but also one’s culture, the context of what is being said, and, perhaps most often taken for granted, the fact that one becomes accustomed to this or that way of saying (thinking).

Now, focus in and realize our power. What one eventually ends up in the habit of thinking may seem the least controllable aspect of one’s forms of thought, but it is by our very actions and intentions that we direct ourselves to do the things which, through enough repetition, eventually evolve into habits. What people do not seem to be terribly observant of in most contexts in our society are the ways one is habitually accustomed to behave—one's ingrained patterns of thinking or speaking—and these patterns are taken for granted, as though oneself were to be known by these familiar patterns which show up as highlighted aspects of the experience because they are so easily recognized. We identify ourselves with certain behaviors which are most often repeated—and what happens is we forget the creative, self-driven role that is played when one chooses to behave a certain way or not.

Here are some examples:

• "I am lazy"—Are you this word we named "lazy," or are you just in the habit of not getting things done?

• "I am stupid"—Are you this word we named "stupid," or are you just accustomed to having difficulty grasping things, and perhaps blundering due to ignorance (which can be corrected through education and practice). 

• "I am beautiful"—Are you this word we named "beautiful," or are you just accustomed to receiving people's love and adoration and praise of your appearance and actions?

The above examples remain helpful when thought of with the chosen adjectives' converse terms inserted.

Carry enough words around with yourself, and you'll begin to feel the weight.

We take the behaviors chosen as being the self, but the real self, if it were to be identified by anything, would be much better described as the very choosing that led up to the occurrence of those behaviors. From the stillness from which we choose, something which we might call pure consciousness, how much better one can hear the many sayings (thinkings) that are taking place than when instead one mistakes the baseline as the drone or slight whisper of certain statements, allowing them to go unheeded, their reality-sculpting force taken for granted. For indeed, every word or thought grants something. Do we define ourselves or do we create ourselves? If we consider ourselves defined, the things we think seem granted; whereas if we consider ourselves created, we grant the things we think.

Our English word "grant" comes from the old Anglo-French "creant" which means in one of its senses, "will, wish, pleasure." We often like to say to each other, "be careful what you wish for." I have found that thinking stands out in its granting of things, so much so that I sometimes feel more inclined to call it "thinging" than "thinking."

Ah, did you have a wish? But give voice to it, and it shall be granted. —A tautology?

Singing

A sigh. I caught this notion on the way, and rapidly took the readiest, poor words to hold it fast, so that it might not again fly away. But it has died in these dry words, and hangs and flaps about in them and now I hardly know, when I look upon it, how I could have had such happiness when I caught this bird. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Gay Science, 298)

There is a way that language will lay itself out, building, as it is spoken or written, a structure which responds to itself in its complexity, which works much in the same way as a song or a poem, always bringing you back… back where? To some sort of cusp—a horizon where the language first emerged out of stillness.

To capture a moving fluid moment with solid words would seem to cut off aspects of the whole, to impoverish it, dry and restricting. We say "bird" but to see and be with the bird is not in the word "bird" we use to refer to it. To think of the world as only a world of words is to try to put into certain frequencies a manifold song, to cage the bird. And as Alan Watts said: "life is like music in this: if any note or phrase is held for longer than its appointed time, the melody is lost." Each word rings forth with its own song, so if we think the words we use are themselves the meanings which we communicate, it is often frustrating, even if we roughly accomplish some sort of response that at surface seems like an agreed meaning. This is to be caught up in one's own tune, without being attuned to the rest of the world around.

Everything we do and everything we say rings forth, and it takes a certain sensitivity and a patient stillness to see the way these ringings intersect and play off of each other. It takes a letting things be as they are to hear the harmonies as they ring forth, and they are always ringing forth—there is no way to stop, freeze everything, and see where the next chord is going to hit. To refer again to the words of our friend the Englishman: "There is nothing you can catch hold of, nothing other than a most lively fact, as much alive as the passing moment which can never be made to stay. And a bird is a bird; you hear its song, but you cannot seize the notes to make them continue" (Alan Watts, "Zen").

What shall the reaction be, to fuss about it and beg for the peal to stop, even just for a brief moment, so we can get our bearings? Or shall we with joy be a part of the play, accepting this ceaseless motion? The moment to listen is here, and if the song stops, there is nothing to listen to. Go ahead, listen. Do you hear it?