2006.02.19 Truth Of Words

Once upon a time, there was a beginning to a story using those exact words that wasn't trite at all. That's because that once, the very first time they were arranged and presented, they were novel and untarnished by repetitive generations of fable tellings. They had a special magic about their use entirely infused by their discovery; a magic that has been worn out completely by ages of ritual sacrifice upon the alter of standard fairy tale format.

But what else can be used to start a fable or fairy tale of classical proportion? Isn't every alternate beginning merely some other beginning that is primarily distinguished by the fact that it isn't "Once upon a time"? No matter how much you might want to avoid being trite, or to conjure new magics by inventing some novel way to say what you want to say, sometimes it really is just best expressed with the trite truth.

Because we are a people of words. Words are the stuff of our thoughts, and the tools our brains use to pry apart the crates of emotion sent to us by our mysterious souls. Some words become part of us, often without us even knowing how or why, and some words brand us with the hot searing pain of our understanding them. We spill words from us when we are full, and words pour from us when we are torn.

Sometimes words fail us. It feels like too often, but how often is it really? I wonder if it isn't really just me failing my words, that my inability to encapsulate something with words isn't due to the limitations of the words, but rather due to my limited understanding. Maybe, if I can't say it, then I don't really know what it is. Maybe knowing something is not complete until you have framed it in words.

Oh, but that's a dangerously one-direction proposition. For even though it might not be possible to know something completely until you can speak of it lucidly, arbitrarily assigning words to something is not the same as knowing it. How often have we all seen that? Or, more honestly, how often have we all committed that lie?

Nevertheless, however you play at expressing it, there can be truth in words. That truth is the fundamental reason for words. No matter how tired or trite those words might seem. Be they "Once upon a time", or "I love you".