Have you ever thought about the power of the word? Oh yes, the words are very powerful, we use them all the time, and everything that we say, we write... we think, depends on it. Well, not everything, we can "talk" without words (non-verbal language), "write" without words (draw), and think without words, if we say that imagine is thinking, in short, suppress audition and only use vision, however, the word is absolutely essential.
We depend on it to know, we depend on it to be conscious, we depend on it to be self-conscious. Have not you noticed? Maybe it's time to do it.
Because we say that someone knows when they can give verbal evidence of such knowledge, and this is true in all fields, including art or cooking, which involve sight and taste. When a person does something and cannot verbally explain the reason why he did it, we say it is irrational, although there is indeed a reason for such action. And when a person handles a concept that is true, however true this thing is, it will seem ignorant if it does not know how to use the right words to express it, because certainly many problems and much discord have been created by the misuse of this instrument.
Because the word is an instrument, never be confused with this, the word and the concept are two different. The word is not the thing, neither the object or the idea that one seeks to express with such, the word is only an instrument to transmit the message. You would be surprised to see how many discussions really take place between two people who, really agree, but have a semantic problem. It happens all the time, if you look closely.
But without deviating, knowledge is born of the word, we are aware of things through the word. If we perceive something, anything, be it an object or an idea, and we don't put a name on it, if we don't assign a word to it, this thing as quickly as we stop perceiving it is forgotten, and finally, we ignore it. After all, can you remember something you never named in any way?
I was trying the other day to remember some faces and I was amazed to realize that, although I can remember the faces of people, I cannot remember his nose alone, neither his mouth, his eyes, etc. In fact, I can only remember the eyes of the people I saw and I assigned them a verbal description, saying they are blue or green, or almond shaped, and the noses that I said are concave or convex, large or small, aquiline, roman or any other. But of the people that I did not make any description of his face (almost all, in fact), I cannot remember any specific part, and only the face as a whole.
And this does not only happen with faces, of course, it happens with anything, even with ourselves. There are behaviors that we have, habits or customs, even fillers when speaking, that we don't perceive, but then, when someone or we mention them, we become aware of this obvious thing that we have witnessed for so long, but that we somehow ignore, simply for not expressing it verbally. Before it was not there, it did not exist, it was nothing, but now when you mention it, it's real, it was always there, it's everything.
On the other hand, when we want to ignore something we remain silent, we avoid making any judgment, without using words, we seek in some way to forget such a thing and not make ourselves aware of it.
The word then has an enormous power, that of indelibly recording a perception in our consciousness. If this perception is true or false, that will depend on the speed with which we make our judgments, it will be up to us to decide if what we want to keep in us is one or the other, but even more, it will depend on us to carefully choose the words with which we refer among ourselves, when thinking, for they make all the difference.
"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name."
Chinese proverb.
Oh, and before I forget, the power of the message is greater than that of the word, and if it is necessary to use the wrong words to convey the right message, so be it, as it is often necessary to suppress the word completely and keep silence, so as not to transmit any message, but so that the person who already knows the message appreciates it again and without tumult.
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