An Experiment

Words are forever. As forever as people are.

I know many words. I love them. And I hate them. They are complex, certainly. My feelings I mean. The words too, but those matter a little less to me than my feelings, obviously.

Is that obvious?

Here I will explain many words. I will explain like a dictionary should, but doesn’t. I don’t know why is doesn’t. Words are probably just too finicky. If Orwell is to be believed, it’s because they want to control me. I’m inclined to believe him.

Each word means something else to everyone. And something to me. I learned these words at strange times. Often times, I was not even alive when I felt them enter my mind. Words let you travel time like that.

Here’s a definition I found of ‘dictionary’ on google’s very own dictionary: “A book or electronic resource that lists the words of a language (typically in alphabetical order) and gives their meaning, or gives the equivalent words in a different language, often also providing information about pronunciation, origin, and usage.”

•You are frustratingly fickle.

I ask ‘why’ often. Too often, likely. It’s because under the facade, I’m sort of an idiot. There is a lot that I do not understand. A lot that I cannot understand and this is frustrating to me.

Have you ever tried to play a game of chess against someone far better than you? I feel as though language always beats me, even if I castle my king. I’m not so good at chess, but I’ve taught more than two people how to play. They’re all better than me now. I am not proud of this.

It was when I taught the most important one that I learned the word lilt. Just look at the word and tell me that’s not a portrait of a perfect family. Two tall parents, and the youngest in the center and the crooked elder to the side. Lilt. lilt. liLt. LilT. That last one looks the scariest.

I lied when I said that was when I learned the word. You should never take anyone’s word. Especially about words. And memories of chess games

But I felt the word for the first time then. That is probably a better way to describe all these incoming words. Perhaps I had known them for longer, or only recently learned them. But I know for a fact when I first felt them.

In the lilt of that blossoming little chess player, I heard the ringing tone of a loving mother and father. But what family is actually perfect? Perhaps the ‘t’ has a drug problem. Or ‘L’ is unhappy with other ‘L’ and is having an affair. Perhaps little ‘i’ is planning on killing the family dog.

Was Werner Heisenberg really a physicist? Or perhaps a philosopher? Maybe the Fascists just made him stick to science instead. I like that narrative best.

It’s amazing how often we’re asked to do things we’re not cut out for. Asked is a soft euphemism for forced. Forced itself has infinite meaning, to infinite degrees. I don’t like the word ‘forced’ because it is too unspecific. ‘Force’ is okay though. It has power, for better or worse.

It’s very common too. I know many who have experienced this. I am one of them. That is where the second word enters. He is called Quotidian and he is distinctly a he. Distant, disciplined, and most importantly painfully repetitive. He looks like cold mathematics.

I find nothing wrong with math itself. I even sort of like parts of it. It’s kind of an alphabet, so I understand why people are so attached to it. But it can be very cold.

Every morning I hear him knocking on my door and pressuring me. It’s unpleasant but it is not starving, or fighting. I am ashamed of how scary he is.

•Everyone else seems to get along just fine. Why can’t you?

I hate being told to get along. Only I am allowed to tell myself this. Getting along is what I call daily, quotidian life. I feel such an immense pressure to be boring and such shame when I actually am. It’s tiresome walking in and out of the same door over and over. That’s when that third word crawls thorough every single space between the floor, the walls, and the outside and ruins your food pantry.

I thought about putting bullet points in here, but those break things up too much, don’t you think?

•Clearly second guessing that simple choice.

Wait I’m stalling. Or getting distracted. Whichever it is changes based on what’s convenient.

Sycophant. That’s the word. It has a weird cousin I learned about more recently. I first saw this cousin in a Russian novel. Mythomane sounds like a drug that makes you relive ancient myths.

You could meet Zeus, dude.

My point is, they’re both liars. Don’t listen to them.

I tell this to myself. I am not one to give commands very often.

I think commands are just misplaced appeals. Those who command are often desperate for someone to listen. The cynical would call them self-important. The empathetic would call them lonely.

Misplaced appeals are tragic. Almost as tragic as misplaced words. They can become just as menacing as commands, when the circumstances are right, like when kings and presidents talk without thinking.

And that’s literally where malaprop comes in.

Did you see what I did there? Of course you did.

Sometimes I end thoughts with jokes and don’t allow them to go further.

•Perhaps that self-delusion will lead to you finding god

Or maybe it’ll just cheer me up from time to time. I am very worried about powerful people using the wrong words.

It’s funny, yes, but also very scary. Anyone can find dictionaries. They are everywhere. I’ve found dozens on the internet, and more on paper. How can they ignore the little details? They’re made of atoms like the rest of us.

•Here you go again, asking stupid questions.

I am not ready for a war.

And yet there are always whispers of it, anywhere you go. In some places, it’s happening right now.

•But even tiny children know that.

That’s where susurration wakes up. I don’t think this word has a sex. It is like a remarkable machine, efficient and sensual, but ultimately kind of lifeless.

The best words are like drawings of what they mean and susurration falls into this category.

But I brought up waking up so I have to elaborate.

It awakens in the child mentioned a moment ago, the ones who know that there are wars.

I heard a boy ask his mother if we would die because of some bombs fired across the sea.

Mother told him no, but the boy’s older sister whispered something into his ear and he cried.

Sometimes when I’m aimlessly unhappy with no reason to be so, I need to take a turn.

Maybe it’s because my mind never stops humming.

•Maybe it’s because you can’t stop thinking about that one thing, that one person, that one phrase.

Or song

But I always drive when I am distressed and the timing is good.

So the word ‘always’ doesn’t belong, but I put it there anyway. I want always to be the truth. If I write it, it shall be. No one else will remember it’s a lie but me, if we wait long enough.

I’m a liar. I never wanted to be, but it sort of just happened. Just like everyone else. There’s quotidian again.

That word is like herpes. Never quite quits bothering me.

I am not a creator. I am an arranger. I never create new words. How can I?

I arrange words trying to find something. I search for something I do not believe I ever had.

Can nostalgia be sad?

The answer is yes and it’s the next word. It’s one of my favorites, so learn it.

Saudade is a word invented by the Portuguese. They’ve had it for hundreds of years.

They explain it as missingness. This word has invaded my mind. I imagine this word as the silent power-behind-the-throne. Saudade is a she. A muse, more specifically, just like the ones from long ago.

She wears a familiar face and speaks in a familiar voice, but she is not real.

I have to always remind myself she is not real.

Sometimes I forget. I feel like monster when I forget.

Not because of the action of forgetting. But because I must always eventually realize that I had forgotten. It seems easy to swap one truth for another, but boy is it tiresome.

We have hunted birds for a very long time. We eat, en masse, the ugly ones.

And every arrow can kill a beast.

But there is one more word. It is not a real word.

I did not make it up. Someone else did. This is not a lie.

It has a silly look to it. Monochopsis. Repeat it in your mind for me a few times.

It describes a subtle, but persistent feeling. That feeling of being out of place.

I like this word because despite its appearance, it is very close to saudade.

I love all things that even remotely resemble the muse of missingness.

This is because you cannot love missingness itself. I’ve tried. Far too difficult.

Words can be real and not real. You can still see words that are not real.

Their visibility is not what makes them real or fake.

It’s us.

God is real to many.

And many are fake in the eyes of god.

So he sees them, but knows they aren’t real.

Just like monochopsis.

But if the word isn’t real, and the implication here is that the feeling isn’t real, then why have a word for it at all?

Again it’s us.

Shit, we don’t even know if we’re real or not. I can’t even decide which truth would be more comforting. But isn’t that exactly what monochopsis is meant to describe?

What a bunch of idiots we all are. Me included, naturally.

•What does nature have to do with it?