Words

You don’t have to be drunk to ponder on their shallowness. You don’t need clarity to see through the deeper meanings assigned to mere letters. You call a far off stony globe giving out light without it intending to a star. And you gaze at them, seek some destiny supposedly written on them and kid yourself into believing in their mystery. A midnight sky is eulogized in a poem with ink and inkiness and twinkling and dimming suns. Oh, they are but suns, to some other beings, which again we put a name to. They make the mundane awe-inspiring and banish some wonders to platitude. Humans, all, suffer from a congenital case of compulsive-impulsive obsession- that to express. That which they think and know and understand and that which they can’t. And then they want to pass it on- as their works. Works of art- an art mastered over ages.

They are lies. Every uttered word is a lie, some beautiful, some ugly. No, only those which are true are ugly. But they are necessary. Like truth and lies. Truth is twisted to deceive, and to cause- harm or happiness. Every time you say something, you steal something from life, of this existence, of being and of a expanding universe.. But that’s not a crime we feel deserves to be punished. If you didn’t steal bits of these lives and claimed ownership with words, they would just lie there, unexplored and then, probable decay greets them. From letting it be, you restrict it with words. Grab an empty space and call it null, void and other words. Fill each vacancy with matter, and if not that, call that anti-matter.

What is this need to give everything a definition, a name, a meaning, a place in the lexicon? Where do we get this urge to waste time thinking about daffodils and witches and then weaving into them a story, a fact and a letter of intent? But then, where would we be if not for them? Aren’t we driven, in a way, by this need to objectify and glorify, unfortunately- a flower, the sky, a life and the universe? Don’t we need confirmations for our beliefs and also our doubts?

Hours are spent on trying to extract inspiration from an insipid clod of clay. Silence is talked about and called golden. And those same words demote speech to silvern. You shatter silences with music. You mix this music with them, them words and there is a song. And then you find peace and calm with it. It’s a vicious unending circle-a game in which words and silence connive and conspire, to play with you.

You ask and you answer. And then you question it and doubt it and come up with more answers. Then you realize it all fades to nothingness, meaninglessness. But you strive on. What is the point of this futility? But then you’d counter saying- does everything have to have a point? Does everything have to have a purpose- high or low, a reason to be?

Can’t those flowers just look beautiful and be left alone without having a book written on them? Can’t we just stare and wonder and be lazy enough to leave it at that? I don’t blame only words now. I’d go further to claim that it is not only the said and unsaid, it’s also those that are done and not done. Can’t we just be amazed at birds flying and soaring high and envy them, but not be too ambitious to imitate them? Can’t that rocky mass be left alone to its own devices rather than be chiseled, carved and molded into what we desire it to be? But then observations compel conclusions, and actions. Or do they?

Words and actions- what came first? It comes nowhere close to the chicken or the egg conundrum. But still, aren’t actions mere manifestation of words? And words a depiction of them? It’s a cycle. Or a circle, if you please. You observe, pry and feel and think and work on those actions. The mechanism is triggered. You say some, you keep some to yourself, you put some into motion and then rest- they say is history. History is a big mistake and we like creating history- colliding and crashing with a solid wind that leaves you breathless and then chronicling that experience with pain or amusement, whichever you felt more or whichever is more in vogue.

Can’t deny that all these do seem beautiful and provide some solace, but. Ramblings.. oh the beauty and misery of them words…I’ve gone now and defied the whole purpose of this – this act- by using too many words. I should have just stuck to gazing at those things in the blue-black sky and enjoying my smoke, and talking to myself.