Words… springing up while waiting in Oslo Airport (#15)
A winter dialogue about an apartment’s temperature in Montreal:
Wife: “It’s cold in here.”
Husband: “Temperature is just nice in here or (even) it’s too hot.”
Then they argument about who is right and who is wrong – there should exist some objective criterion that would permit to clarify whose perception is distorted (“something is wrong with your somatic heat control system… hormones may be!”).
As the argument goes on, a neighbour rings the apartment’s bell. After a few minutes spent chatting, the wife asks the visitor “it is cold in here, isn’t it?” This third party may suddenly be invested with the authority to define reality: the apartment’s temperature is cold, just nice, or hot.
One of language’s functions is to define reality. Most of the time, people don’t see this as reality definition by one party, but as reality description.
Here is another couple story in order to make up my point (Pierre, aren’t you trying to define reality!). The husband is expecting his wife to work less; he often complains of being bored while alone at home (early retirement pension), waiting for her. He says she is ‘egocentric’, investing her work instead of their relationship. The wife has worked very hard to get her professional status. She has always been very explicit about her intentions. She thinks, and says to her husband that he is ‘too much dependent’. Egocentric? Excessive dependency? Well, egocentricity and dependency are not absolute terms – their existences rest on persons’ expectancies towards each other, their personal perspective. In fact, egocentricity and dependency don’t exist outside relationships. They are not fundamental particles of the universe!
A way to understand those mutual “curses*” would be to identify the intentions of their initiators. The husband may use his curse (“egocentric”) as a way to alter his wife behavior, i.e., getting her out of work – the wife may use her curse (“too much dependent”) as a way to cope with her guilt generated by her husband’s dissatisfaction.
Lets pursue this story a little bit further. The wife has been shaken by her husband labeling of her behavior and a part of herself feels guilty (another part wants to pursue her career). So she calls her friends who reassures her: “you are not egocentric; your’e to the contrary very generous.” We are now in the web of words – I use to say that we are trapped in the spider’s web of words. Language has created a virtual world, but we perceive this world as real; a world with people that are lazy or courageous, coward or brave, kind or nasty, egocentric or empathic, ugly or beautiful, etc. Those words appear frequently in novels, theatre plays or movies, but not in physics or chemistry treatises.
When the curse is effective, that is when we accept this as definition of ourselves, it becomes a world in itself. For example, I may avoid a challenging opportunity because I believe I am lazy and it isn’t even worth trying. The word has now a power on my life as would have a steel barrier closing a garden. This is in fact astonishing since laziness doesn’t exist on its own, doesn’t possess its proper life.
This view of language makes me think (with humour) that the default mode of human beings is delirious; some people simply showing it in a more obvious way – we often label them “crazy”, another curse.
This doesn’t mean that words are problematic. They help us in many ways. Here is an example. I regularly jog. And unfortunately, it seems that I am in the group of joggers for whom jogging remains painful (not experiencing this ecstasy described by many). Pain is usually accompanied by an avoidance action tendency, in this case my body strongly begs me to stop. Without prefrontal cortex and a language system, this is what would be happening, I would stop (unless I would be at risk of missing my bus). So I have this thought telling me “Pierre, for your health it’s better to run than not to run”… and I maintain my running despite my pain; probably a good news for my health!
So language may be helpful or may trigger unnecessary sufferance. Identifying the difference between the two is an interesting option.
In my delirious imagination (this applies also to me), I see the apparition of language as a way to favour cohesion into primitive clans. For example, hunting dangerous animals needed the cooperation of each and all — shared signs and symbols enhanced the potency of that cooperation. It is easy to imagine that sharing a few words (distinction between types of animals, informations about their location, etc.) would facilitate the coordination between hunters. This is the useful facet of language, as is it was the case with my jogging.
In contrast, the couples’ stories show less useful uses of language. In the two couples’ argumentations described above, language is reified and locked in a power struggle between two persons. This isn’t functional and frequently generates sufferance.
Words don’t always mean what they first appear. Be careful with words 😊
Final note : coming back home from a three weeks workshops tour in Norway, France and Morocco (three very different cultures with three very different languages – being a citizen of the world), my wife is listening to TV news in which I here local politicians pouring out WORDS… Truth? Delirium?… Remember to keep an eye on which intentions words defend.
pcousineau
* Not that long ago people believed (and still today for many) in the power of curses on reality. In Marcel Druon marvellous epic The Accursed Kings, Book 1, we found this excerpt:
“The Grand Master’s burning face [condemned to be burnt at the stake] was turned towards the royal loggia. And the terrible voice cried, ‘Pope Clement, Chevalier Guillaume de Nogaret, King Philip, I summon you to the Tribunal of Heaven before the year is out, to receive your just punishment! Accursed! Accursed! You shall be accursed to the thirteenth generation of your lines.”
And what was predicted happened…
pcousineau 