gibberish/words
Stuart Hall says one thing, Wittgenstein says another, but I just talk gibberish
Morgana was recently telling me about why she writes poetry. The words fall out of her the same way her brain falls in on itself, things tangle together in memories and associations and nonsense and reason, the way she phrased it was so absolutely beautiful it actually sort of freaked me out. Like looking at the ocean. Sublime. Etc etc. I am supposed to be writing my essay right now. But it feels like all my words are stuck up inside me. I am word constipated. And yet, every night I have been writing in my little notebook (that NOBODY is allowed to read because it is full of my deepest darkest secrets and not for the eyes of people like you) and I can’t stop the words at all. Last night I wrote 7 pages in my little slanted handwriting – I have been working on ensuring I have beautifully feminine handwriting, it feels like an important aspect of my gender performance personally. How can I be word constipated and word diahorheaed simultaneously? I suppose the word constipation only comes when the words must make sense. Maybe the constipation is a reluctance to making sense; speaking with certainty. It is certainly difficult to make sense when you are utterly uncertain of most things. I am certain, however, that every week I am getting less and less certain of anything at all. Maybe all of this uncertainty in me is why Morgana’s certainty about the words falling out was so… awesome? But even this I am certainly not certain of. I’ve said certain and uncertain so many times now that perhaps you feel uncertain too - these words have lost their meanings, they have mutated into gibberish.
Stuart Hall posed that reality simultaneously constructs and is constructed by our language. In order to comprehend something, we need a word that translates it into our understanding. In Japanese they use the word "aoi" 青い to describe a blue-green colour but also a freshness, a new life-ness, that is not captured by any English word. Or, perhaps if you too were on Tumblr in 2014, the word ‘wanderlust’ (and correlating images of white girls sporting tie-dye atop a mountain) would spring to mind. Stuart Hall says words like ‘gender’ is what makes gender exist - and in this regard, our language constructs our reality. If Derran Brown managed to get everyone in the world together, he could brainwash us into forgetting all words pertaining to gender, and poof - gender ceases to be! Theoretically, that is; I do not make any claims on the legitimacy of Derran Brown’s magical abilities.
Wittengenstein, in a similar but also different way, locates the meaning of a word within its function within language. Toenail means toenail because I use the word toenail to refer to a toenail, etc etc. (An example chosen because I am currently looking at my big toe, which recently (and mysteriously) lost its big toenail.) In this way, language can be used in different ways by different people, and people can be misinterpreted. Thus, the beautiful phrase ‘linguistic confusion’ was born, and, subsequently, the birth of many, many memes. Therefore, in a similar way to Stuart Hall, language is only meaningful when it is understood by a group of people. When we all are in agreement that toenail means toenail, then toenail does mean toenail. But me just saying toenail to myself, and I’m the only one that knows that toenail means toenail, to everyone else I am essentially speaking gibberish.
We agree language exists, we agree it must correlate to our reality, we agree with each other on which words correlate to which bit of reality, and so it is true. And so we repeat the words. And so the language becomes more real. I say toenail, you point at toenail. Morgana says poem, and I wait to read it. And then the words get repeated a little too much. You read certainly and uncertainly a few times too many in one sentence, and the words lose their meaning.
I suppose what I’m saying is, if we make language by using it, then it is pretty cool we unmake it again by using it too much. Maybe that should be a metaphor for something? Or maybe it says something about human nature? Or maybe it’s just gibberish?