A reply to Sarah's "The Mysteries Of A Being"

Dear Sarah,

Words are not destroyers of everything.

The word 'everything' itself is too condemning. Not everything is destroyed by words. We live with words. Words are already part of us, stored in our own biological database, and they grow with us. We can hardly live through a day without words, we need them, like you said, to convey messages, to express ideas, to communicate. Even for those who cannot speak communicates through sign language, which also formed its basis from words. If words destroy everything, then words are now eating us up from the inside then?

We are not always the victims of words. Words can be constructive or destructive. In your typical example of divorce, words are destructive. But prior to that, when the couple is in love, it is words that brought them together in the first place - through the flirting, sweet talks, serenades and "I do". They just chose to use the words destructively later. Yet, as you said, words alone are emotionless. Hence, it is the human brain that interpreted the words in a negative way, which wrapped emotions around the words, which over analysed the cadence of speech, which formed the foundations of rage and irritation. Words alone are not destructive, it is the brain of ours that thought so.

You had also stated that understanding is impossible to achieve because the world is continuously changing. However, understanding per se is constantly changing. What is understood now is different from what is understood before and what will we understand in the future. Understanding something holds true at that time. The same sentence, the same words, can be deciphered differently at different times. The word 'understanding' holds true for what we know, what we can elicit from the given information at that time by that person. Not forever. Nothing stays the same forever. Ergo, it is not impossible to understand, because ultimately what we understand is what we know specific to that particular time.

'Pictures paint a thousand words', 'Silence is golden', 'Thy word is truth'. Hence, words speak as loud as pictures as silence. All three of them are equally important. Words help to clear up ambiguities in pictures. Pauses are needed in between sentences so that speeches and essays make more sense. Some parts of a painting are left empty to balance the whole. Words can form lies, pictures can be deliberately fabricated, and sometimes silence lose its golden lustre. How is it then, that words are destroyers of everything when pictures and silences are equally lethal?

Nothing is good or bad, thinking made it so.


(Oh my, mine were such disorganised words!)