Leave words
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mixed_biscuits
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I hear words aren't needed on the other side as we have access to all thoughts, not just our own.
The sense that one would then know everything there is to know has also been reported by people after out-of-the-body experiences!
Psychics don't receive lexical information, that's why they can seem strangely cagey about people's names.
The sense that one would then know everything there is to know has also been reported by people after out-of-the-body experiences!
Psychics don't receive lexical information, that's why they can seem strangely cagey about people's names.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Burroughs was well into this idea wasn't he, there was a bit of discussion about it recently in the ticket that exploded thread.
INTERVIEWER: Why is the wordless state so desirable?
BURROUGHS: I think it's the evolutionary trend. I think that words are an around-the-world, ox-cart way of doing things, awkward instruments, and they will be laid aside eventually, probably sooner than we think.
INTERVIEWER: Why is the wordless state so desirable?
BURROUGHS: I think it's the evolutionary trend. I think that words are an around-the-world, ox-cart way of doing things, awkward instruments, and they will be laid aside eventually, probably sooner than we think.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
INTERVIEWER
In Nova Express, you indicate that silence is a desirable state.
BURROUGHS
The most desirable state. In one sense a special use of words and pictures can conduce silence. The scrapbooks and time travel are exercises to expand consciousness, to teach me to think in association blocks rather than words. I’ve recently spent a little time studying hieroglyph systems, both the Egyptian and the Mayan. A whole block of associations—boonf!—like that! Words, at least the way we use them, can stand in the way of what I call nonbody experience. It’s time we thought about leaving the body behind.
In Nova Express, you indicate that silence is a desirable state.
BURROUGHS
The most desirable state. In one sense a special use of words and pictures can conduce silence. The scrapbooks and time travel are exercises to expand consciousness, to teach me to think in association blocks rather than words. I’ve recently spent a little time studying hieroglyph systems, both the Egyptian and the Mayan. A whole block of associations—boonf!—like that! Words, at least the way we use them, can stand in the way of what I call nonbody experience. It’s time we thought about leaving the body behind.
version
Well-known member
"It is becoming more and more difficult, even senseless, for me to write an official English. And more and more my own language appears to me like a veil that must be torn apart in order to get at the things (or the Nothing-ness) behind it. Grammar and Style. To me they seem to have become as irrelevant as a Victorian bathing suit or the imperturbability of a true gentleman. A mask…Is there any reason why that terrible materiality of the word surface should not be capable of being dissolved?"
"As we cannot eliminate language all at once, we should at least leave nothing undone that might contribute to its falling into disrepute. To bore one hole after another in it, until what lurks behind it - be it something or nothing - begins to seep through."
Beckett, letter to Axel Kaun, 1937
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I suppose this is why so many of his later plays consist of little more than a set of stage directions.
version
Well-known member
Lispector was phobic about the dilution of language through overuse: “Writing too much and too often can contaminate the word.” Indeed, the obligation of having to write—together with the pervasive sense of the inadequacy of words—is an idée fixe in the crônicas, and Lispector repeatedly harangued herself for it: “If I could, I would leave my place on this page blank: replete with a resounding silence,” marks a May 1971 entry. The distrust of the merely documentary function of writing also reflects a wider anxiety about language’s sense-making abilities. “I don’t know how to ‘clothe an idea in words,’” she wrote in a piece a year earlier. “When I am writing, I feel again what is apparently the only paradoxical certainty: that what gets in the way of writing is having to use words.”
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Beckett's last poem
folly -
folly for to -
for to -
what is the word -
folly from this -
all this -
folly from all this -
given -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this -
this -
what is the word -
this this -
this this here -
all this this here -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this this here -
for to -
what is the word -
see -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse -
what -
what is the word -
and where -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse what where -
where -
what is the word -
there -
over there -
away over there -
afar -
afar away over there -
afaint -
afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -
seeing all this -
all this this -
all this this here -
folly for to see what -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
afaint afar away over there what -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -
what is the word
folly -
folly for to -
for to -
what is the word -
folly from this -
all this -
folly from all this -
given -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this -
this -
what is the word -
this this -
this this here -
all this this here -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this this here -
for to -
what is the word -
see -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse -
what -
what is the word -
and where -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse what where -
where -
what is the word -
there -
over there -
away over there -
afar -
afar away over there -
afaint -
afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -
seeing all this -
all this this -
all this this here -
folly for to see what -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
afaint afar away over there what -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -
what is the word
version
Well-known member
Just for clarity. And in case not obvious, but the opening post quote is from this book about animism, dark green religion.
It's about considering nature sacred etc.
Slightly different jump off point.
But yes, stop reading and writing, try to be a squirrel in the woods.
It's about considering nature sacred etc.
Slightly different jump off point.
But yes, stop reading and writing, try to be a squirrel in the woods.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
True, but that's what makes that Beckett poem so poignant, the futility of someone trying and failing to express the inexpressible, just as they're about to die I think.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Sorry, I thought the thread was about something else then
version
Well-known member
Yeah, like Ahab attempting to wage war on the entire creation.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I still haven't read moby dick unfortunately so I don't get what you mean.
The Beckett poem is like someone fading away, glimpsing but unable to say the elusive word that might sum up their life experience, just before it's snuffed out. The word only exists on the tip of their tongue.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
But sorry again, derailing the thread now.