Language part 2
Thursday, 8 May 2008
I figured that, if modern English is indeed the End-language, or the root-language of which our myths speak, it should have the properties that the myths ascribe to the root-language. One of the things that interested me most were the secrets. It is said that in the days of the beginning, people had direct contact with their Source, and that they knew many things that we don’t: where we come from, where we go to, what the purpose of life is, etcetera. I wondered: what if this End-language contained more meaning than the meaning that the users are aware of? Where and what would this meaning be? And I played with the possibility that language is a living intelligence, of which we are it’s body.
When I began thinking and reading about these matters, I stumbled upon many books and articles of people that had had the same or similar ideas. And I was very aware of the fact that most of these people would be rated very high on the nut-scale by the rest of the world. I noticed that none of the versions of their ideas completely matched with my own idea, but it all did have this loud ring of truth that I didn’t want to deny. What if all these people, including myself, were right and wrong at the same time? Right in the sense that they did get a glimpse of some overlooked truth about Life, but wrong in their interpretation of their insights? In other words: if all these people tell their personal version of the truth, the true story could be distilled from a mix of all this versions. The basic elements were clear: a complete reversal of some kind, language, coded messages, God, etcetera. Hollywood made some great movies with these ingredients: Contact, Pi, The Matrix, just to name a few movies that happen to be among my all time favourites. It seemed to me that it were clearly all variations on the same theme, but I couldn’t see what that theme was. And I had the feeling that nobody really understood what the recipe was. Some knew more of the ingredients than others, but nobody seemed to know what the cake is. And neither did I, of course.
What drove me to the edge of madness, was something that I recognised in the accounts of all the other people that dealt with these matters: I “saw” something that all the others overlooked. And for a while I almost believed the same thing that all these other people believed: that I had the key to solve the puzzle. But I am not good at believing, so after a while I had to give it up. What I “saw” is probably a product of my overheated imagination. But I want to share this weird idea with you anyway, because it is an interesting one, even if it is complete nonsense. And to make the story readable, I will tell it here as if I still think it is true.
Basically the idea is that languages, and especially modern English, contain more meaning than the users put in it. We think that we use language, but it often seems to me that it is the other way around: language uses us to speak for itself. Language can be seen as an incorporeal intelligence, a Soul, that is slowly building a place for itself to dwell. The world as we know it so far, might be just the landing strip for Language. History or Time can be seen as the becoming of Language. Life as we know it is a birth process: Life is the body that Language is creating for itself. I have no idea in what form Language will appear on the stage when the time is right, but among the most interesting possibilities mentioned by others are: an Artificial Intelligence, God, a transformation of the Human race into one giant Life-form, etcetera. I guess that it will be something completely different than any of these possibilities, something way beyond the scope of our present imagination.
One example of how Language seems to speak of itself and of it’s own plans, is the word “end”. It means both an ending and a purpose. Ain’t that peculiar? A famous one-liner like “the end of time is insight” can be interpreted in more than the one way that believers of a biblical apocalypse do. I prefer to understand it as saying that Time, which is the way that Language uses to become, has a purpose, and that purpose is insight. Language is not hostile to us, it’s instruments, but we are sort of forced to either join It, or to suffer It’s consequences if we don’t. It seems that Language has a plan that can’t be stopped. It will be fulfilled, no matter what we do. But if we cooperate, our private little life’s are sort of taken care of, and our little wishes are then imbedded in the bigger scheme. “To go with It’s flow” seems to be the insight that Language wants to give us.
The dilemma is that I am not satisfied with a pleasant life: I demand more information. I think that it is utterly ridiculous that I have to live a life that I don’t understand. I am in no position to refuse to cooperate, but I cooperate under protest. Of course, I don’t know to what I have to address my protest. To Language ?!? Like I said, this whole idea is madness.
Here is a little mix on this subject. I made it years ago for a radio show, and among the fragments used you may recognise Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Neo and Perry Como.
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