Words To Live By?
While watching the news the other day, it occurred to me that people who have "words to live by" often begin to attack and even kill others. I remembered my own angry attitude from years ago, when I could easily use words to justify violent thoughts which might have become violent actions. Words are valuable tools, and yet it seems that they can be more dangerous than gunpowder.
For a moment, imagine two men facing each other, pointing past one another. One man is pointing at a tornado that is coming. The other is pointing at a raging fire headed towards them. They each see their own truth and each is angry at the sight of the other's hand. They feel that the other's hand is "wrong." This seems silly, but replace the tornado and fire with any modern issues, and the hands with words, and this scene describes how we often try to communicate.
People point past each other with their words, arguing as though they are looking at the same facts and experiences. They want to prove that their words are the right ones, instead of learning to look at what the other's words are pointing at. Words are seductive, and for all their undeniable usefulness, they also can lead us away from understanding when we focus on them, when we make them more important than the truth they are meant to point at.
There Are No Words To Live By
It isn't just a matter of communicating with others. We often focus on, and get trapped in a net of words that we use to explain the world to ourselves. We easily call things "right" or "wrong" for example, according to how they compare to our "definitions." However... (continued at http://www.999Ideas.com/words-to-live-by.html)
For a moment, imagine two men facing each other, pointing past one another. One man is pointing at a tornado that is coming. The other is pointing at a raging fire headed towards them. They each see their own truth and each is angry at the sight of the other's hand. They feel that the other's hand is "wrong." This seems silly, but replace the tornado and fire with any modern issues, and the hands with words, and this scene describes how we often try to communicate.
People point past each other with their words, arguing as though they are looking at the same facts and experiences. They want to prove that their words are the right ones, instead of learning to look at what the other's words are pointing at. Words are seductive, and for all their undeniable usefulness, they also can lead us away from understanding when we focus on them, when we make them more important than the truth they are meant to point at.
There Are No Words To Live By
It isn't just a matter of communicating with others. We often focus on, and get trapped in a net of words that we use to explain the world to ourselves. We easily call things "right" or "wrong" for example, according to how they compare to our "definitions." However... (continued at http://www.999Ideas.com/words-to-live-by.html)
posted by Steve Gillman at 6:58 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home