Ineffable

In Culture, Miscellany on 25 December 2009 with 2 comments

We all seem to have things we can’t say to each other.

Perhaps we can’t say them because they are socially inap­pro­pri­ate. Perhaps we can’t say them because they reveal feel­ings we aren’t sup­posed to have. Perhaps we can’t say them because the words, their being uttered, their exis­tence out­side of our thoughts would change the rela­tion­ship into which they were spo­ken, and that rela­tion­ship should not, or can­not, be changed.

So we find other ways to express our­selves. We write let­ters that we don’t send. We write text mes­sages that say what our mouths can­not. We wall the words into dark recesses of our­selves and suf­fer their tor­ment as they tear toward the sur­face in dreams, art, inex­plic­a­ble moments of des­per­ate hap­pi­ness or sorrow.

We have so many ways of deal­ing with words we daren’t speak.

2 Comments