It only exists because I say so

Doesn’t exist. Does exist. Is. Isn’t. It’s like. It’s as if. You know how? For want of a better word. For lack of a better phrase. Swings and roundabouts. Between a rock and a hard place.

“These wars of words are pointless, nothing gets accomplished.” – Reuben

There is no denying that some form of language is essential to a functioning and working model of society. In every evolved human culture there has been some form of language from words and sentences, to clicking and singing, language has become an essential part of humanity. It allows us to communicate and thus helps us engage with fellow humans and it allows us to express what we think and feel through the manipulation of words and speech.

So language on a very basic level, allows us to project ideas into a coherent format so the idea can be fully understood. This however poses a problem, it means the human race is inevitably limited. Because if a language is not sufficient enough to express an idea accurately then that idea is lost. If the word doesn’t exist for something then logically we presume that that thing does not exist or is in fact something else.

If we take for an example an emotion we may feel, one we’ve never felt before and one that there is no word or combination of words allowing us to accurately express what we feel. What do we do? We contextualise this emotion, we examine it in relation to what we have felt previously and what others have felt, we would then brand this new emotion as a form of another emotion thereby giving us a way to effectively understand it. For instance “a kind of lonely sadness”. If we do not do this then we presume that since we have never heard of this emotion, because there is no word for it, then it does not exist at all and we ignore it. In both these situations a lack of language has caused us a lack in understanding of the emotion and in both cases we are forced by language to deny that it exists independent of another emotion, if at all.

Since when we think we use speech, our internal dialogue, our thoughts are completely limited to our vocabulary of words, which is drawn from the limited source of a language. Our thought then is limited by our need to express the existence of something through dialogue. Now whether this is an inevitable fallout of the development of a language or simply a human inability to think and rationalise without dialogue I do not know. But this train of thought does bring about some interesting ideas.

One of which is that you can limit human thought through limitation on human language. The most obvious example of this is in Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty Four” in which the dystopian totalitarian government begins to forcibly change language. This is done by eliminating all alternative methods of expression, for instance “how are you today” would be answered with “good” or “bad” there would be nothing in between because there is no need for it. Obviously the result of this is people stop feeling emotions other than good or bad due to their inability to express them. Likewise thoughts of political dissonance would be impossible as no one would be able to effectively express any idea they might have. Thus rendering the idea pointless and casting it away.

Now obviously nothing this extreme is happening today, as if we would be able to know if there was, but instead of this we manipulate words and meaning. We teach people to react a certain way to certain words “conspiracy theorist” for example. When we hear this phrase we have connotations and emotions that have been attached to it, such as “crazy”, “idiot”, “terrorist”, etc. All of these connotations have no relevance to it’s actual definition: simply an alternate account of an event. But through the use of these words in the wrong context and by applying these negative tones to it the phrase has come to mean something it isn’t, thus never allowing the phrase to be used without immediately creating an inherent bias due to the ideas associated with it.

I’ve spoken about the use of language and its limitations from thoughts in my own head. I’m gonna finish by quoting Misia Landau an anthropologist who states “Language is not merely a device for communicating ideas into the world, but rather a tool for bringing the world into existence in the first place. Reality is not simply “experienced” or “reflected” in language, but is instead actually produced by language”.

If we take the above statement as a workable truth and evolve the idea then we could infinitely expand our reality by expanding our language. I’ll finish by saying coomploquaw and good health.

Jobs we hate. Shit we don't need.

So what I wanted to talk about a little now is something I’ve been thinking about for a long while and seems to proving itself true as I begin to work full time, it’s an observation I made during my last couple years of education and is something I feel can be applied to a wide demographic within society. So as is becoming custom with these small attempts at articulation I’m gonna bang in a quote.

“I’m making it I may live badly; but at least I don’t have to work to do it. To all you workers out there; every single commodity you produce is a piece of your own death.” - A dude in the film "slacker"

So here’s my observation on one of the ways in which society has come to work. In about the last 3 years of my time in education I was in position where I felt very tired at the end of each day and felt so lethargic I couldn’t do anything else, now I don’t know if this was just me but the impression I got from others is that they felt the same way. Now this is quite strange in some respects to have your day ending at four. Since being in near full time employment since leaving any educational institution I’ve been tired most evenings, getting home at six and not wanting to do anything but be entertained by the idiot box or by the games console sitting beneath, with no desire to do much else. The result of this in my personal experience is spending your days doing something you don’t necessarily want to do out of necessity and being too tired and drained from said activities to do anything you might want to do which goes beyond being entertained in some form or another.

The implications of this are vast. If we see the above perspective as true then that allows for the following to happen to also become true. People in a tired state are more prone to propaganda and advertising which is pushed all around us as convenience becomes of such great importance we don’t end up thinking about what we’re doing. A simple example of this is watching the same news program or reading the same newspaper everyday out simply because it’s easy and you are void of the time or energy to explore an alternative. A second implication being that things deemed important to a society, politics for example; are on the hole, ignored. With the only feed to it coming from the convenient sources we spoke of. Now if news is biased, which it inevitably is and if it is owned by a select group of financial power houses, which once again, it is. They can tell us whatever they desire regarding political issues for example meaning real facts and issues are ignored and those in power are not truly known and the actions they’re taking are not truly understood or some cases heard of at all, for example the lack of coverage on the G20 summit in Toronto recently.

So some would certainly argue that this system has been put in place to keep us docile and ignorant, now I don’t know whether or not that’s true but the key point for me is that regardless of whether or not this is a result of design or a result of society’s material/monetary based development is not as greater issue as the fact that this model is prevalent in society. Whether someone is grafting hard each day in the building trade or sitting in an office for eight hours tapping numbers and names into a computer both are tiresome and arduous when do to the extent that participating in this society requires. What we see develop with this model of how people behave in society is a cycle develop. People at a young aged through, advertising, indoctrination and general propaganda are taught that what they really want in life is material possessions. With this in mind then people seek out a means to this end, this being work. However although the work allows them to achieve this end it also makes them more susceptible to yet more advertising and propaganda due to their being tired and needing to relax. (the price of this relaxation being advertising between programs and product, and idea, placement within the program). The cycle then repeats itself (obviously that’s why it’s a cycle).
So if it is the case that I have identified a problem in our system and one that stunts our intellectual and spiritual development whether intentional or not, then what do we do about it? Well I have no fucking idea. I think the main thing is to give greater importance to things outside of work, music, art, relationships anything you can fully throw yourself into. Don’t reduce things you love to hobbies. And remember a job is a job, nothing more. It’s you working because you have to live, something you generally don’t wanna do and thus something you should care as little about as possible.

Now this is based on my own personal experience and a pattern I noticed during education which I feel has transcended into my time at work as well. I could go into far more detail with regards to examples and other ways in which this “model” (more an observation) can be applied but it’s simply an idea and it could well change in my mind tomorrow, as with every idea I have. As always I hope this little musing is of interest to anyone reading. I’ll finish with a quote from Doug Stanhope here when talking about work and employment. “The ultimate goal of any society should be complete unemployment. Don’t work hard if you don’t enjoy it and remember it’s just a rid and there are things far more important than your job or education.