It's strange how certain thoughts constantly reoccur in your mind. I say this because since last night I've been quietly mulling over something I read on the act of reading itself. In fact it reminds me of Wittgenstein's idea of "the limits of my language are the limits of my world." The writer Robert Rowland Smith argues that "the book you're reading can't release any meaning without your mind to coax it out, the book suffers the same limits you do-it can mean only as much as your mind is capable of letting it mean." ('Breakfast with Socrates') In other words the "verbal aquarium of characters, colours and currents" can only become so in the mind. Yet there could also be another interpretation here and one that sends me back to the dictionary for the daily digest; that is to say the life of the text is bound or determined by our internal or mental dictionaries. I'm no fan of Arthur Scargill but he once said that his father would read the dictionary every day: "he says your life depends on your power to master words." So it's back to the dictionary then after some lunch of course.
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."
('The Man With the Blue Guitar' Wallace Stevens)
Thought provoking post. I'm glad we connected. I have been interested in words for a long time, but in a different way. Betty and I do counseling through out church, often marriage counseling. Poor communication is often one of the major roots of problems. However, the problem is not in saying things better but in better listening. People use words to mean one thing and the listener hears something very different. I guess our world is not only limited by our words, but also defined by our words.
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Dan
Absolutely I agree Dan. I tend to think that listening skills are so underrated nowadays. It raises the importance of empathy I guess. Thanks for the post.
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