Interpretation

On the scope of feeling to not feeling, I'm pretty heavily weighted on the former. The primary reason I love words is they challenge us to articulate elusive feelings with a mere 26 letters. We experience love and heartbreak, hope and despair, confusion, insecurity, loneliness, contentment. But there really are no words for these sensations. There really are no words for the spiritual longings we try to snuff out with activity and fixations.

I feel the most in the stillness and silence. But I have no words in those moments. Explaining the experience seems to cheapen it. Because words never really get it right.

I probably should have been a painter instead of a writer. Sometimes colors and shapes say what saying can't say. They say things without saying them, which often seems the most accurate interpretation. But I've never had enough money to fund a painting career. Words are cheap, available, and infinite. And so am I.

Words are holy because they're little particles of our souls. They're the tools we use to try to share what's going on inside. With them we reach outside of ourselves when whatever we're feeling is so intense it can't be contained any longer. We share things we regret, and want to take back the words we've spoken when they're not received in a sensitive and respectful manner. Or, when they're respectfully received but misunderstood. Or, when they are perfectly understood but reveal unattractive aspects of us.

We use words to craft an image of ourselves, to tell a story we'd like to be true. Big words to sound important. Misleading words to sound interesting. We keep on talking until we're justified in whatever we thought or felt or did. We explain a breakup as someone else's fault. A death as a normal part of life. Disappointment as a stepping stone to the thing we really want. We interpret ourselves as victims of tragedies we caused with our own hands. We make ourselves sound like heroes when we are still scared children.

I have spent the majority of my life in school. In the Information Age, those who have obtained, can communicate, and can generate information are king. My degrees mean I've mastered the art of using big words to interpret the world. Which means I've also learned what words and what format to not use. I'm adult. I've learned what's expected of me.

So on job applications I highlight my strategic planning abilities. I tell people I work in leadership development. And I nod thoughtfully as I listen to other highly educated individuals string together letters that mean nothing. Today's professional world rewards the ability to say nothing. I am so good at it, because I want to eat.

I realize this sounds like the most cynical essay ever (I'm aware of my words). Maybe it is. Maybe I just want to cut the bullshit for a few sacred moments in the cybersphere. Or, I want to acknowledge that no matter how well we explain things, they're never really explained. I want to affirm that our souls and what it means to be alive amount to more than the 26 letters we learned in kindergarten. And I want to encourage us to find additional ways of communicating - to recognize the wordless ways we tell each other what's really going on.

I mostly believe that humans have the ability to read each other's minds. That telepathic communication is real and often more accurate than other forms of discourse. There are so many times when someone is heavy on my mind and I later realize something significant was going on in their life. And my experience has been that the dynamics of relationships are mostly worked out in the absence of one another. I believe (maybe it's my belief in God) that if I send love out into the the universe for someone it will somehow reach them. I'm not as New Agie as all this sounds; I just believe that hunches mean things. I believe God created us with a sixth sense that is hard for scientists to define. The ability of a mother to know her child is in need, even when he's grown and lives thousands of miles away. The ability to make peace with one another without hashing out the details of our offenses. The internal sense that something terrible or something wonderful is about to happen, despite the sheer lack of evidence. And the ability to hope. To know something so deeply, so firmly that you can build your whole life on it. That's hard to explain.