i'm feeling philosophical
so i've been developing this school of thought since sometime over winter break. by no means did i come up with this on my own, only through conversations with others (mainly rich and sean [and alan watts]). here is one of the main problems with life: life is a continuum. imagine a color spectrum that ranges from red to orange to yellow...to violet. there is no definite line separating red from orange and orange from yellow, rather one kind of just bleeds into the next by infinitely small units. red-orange, orange-red, whatever colors are between those... this is how life works. but with life one must imagine a spectrum with many dimensions. not just one dimension [left to right; red to violet]. you have to include up and down representing brightness and darkness, and back and forth representing opacity, etc... 3, 11, 42, 128...MANY dimensions.
the problems come about when we use language to describe life. with every word we use, every noun, verb, adjective, preposition, gerund, conjunction, etc... we draw arbitrary lines within this spectrum we call "life". by defining what something IS, we automatically define what it IS NOT. by saying "chair" we mean a specific thing, and we dont mean every other thing that is not a "chair". same deal with "run", one specific action is running, and all other actions are not. humans love to categorize and draw lines and subdivisions. but what about right around the boarders of those lines. when does "run" become "jog" or "skip". this becomes especially clear when one tries to talk about relationships. what the hell is a "girlfriend" anyway? what if youre "dating" or those stupid "friends with benefits"? there is so much complexity involved when it comes to the relationship between two people; we try to put these arbitrary labels on them and they just barely work. the work enough that they continue to exist. this problem isnt only applicable to relationships, but it's easily illustrated using that example.
since i've realized this, i have lost all faith in communication. but i'm torn. if it werent for these arbitrary words and definitions we wouldnt be where we are today. i could not have conveyed the idea i just have. so in some respects words dont work, in other respects, they necessarily do work. yet again... where do you draw the line between "working" and "not working". it never ends.
this entry has no conclusion, i just wanted to get you to think.
the problems come about when we use language to describe life. with every word we use, every noun, verb, adjective, preposition, gerund, conjunction, etc... we draw arbitrary lines within this spectrum we call "life". by defining what something IS, we automatically define what it IS NOT. by saying "chair" we mean a specific thing, and we dont mean every other thing that is not a "chair". same deal with "run", one specific action is running, and all other actions are not. humans love to categorize and draw lines and subdivisions. but what about right around the boarders of those lines. when does "run" become "jog" or "skip". this becomes especially clear when one tries to talk about relationships. what the hell is a "girlfriend" anyway? what if youre "dating" or those stupid "friends with benefits"? there is so much complexity involved when it comes to the relationship between two people; we try to put these arbitrary labels on them and they just barely work. the work enough that they continue to exist. this problem isnt only applicable to relationships, but it's easily illustrated using that example.
since i've realized this, i have lost all faith in communication. but i'm torn. if it werent for these arbitrary words and definitions we wouldnt be where we are today. i could not have conveyed the idea i just have. so in some respects words dont work, in other respects, they necessarily do work. yet again... where do you draw the line between "working" and "not working". it never ends.
this entry has no conclusion, i just wanted to get you to think.