I have found a cafe that sells a cake rivalling the chocolate cornflake crispie cake I so adore: the cake is called Honey Joy and is even more joyous because it contains only cornflakes and honey - no butter or milk. I am sorry to say that the cafe is Starbucks, but I like it in there - you never get kicked out for sitting for a year with just one cup of tea and they do soya milk. And, so I now discover, they do Honey Joy. For less than £1 at that.
I was reading in there with my tea and my Honey Joy and I started thinking. It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a concept that is nameless. Once you name something, you make it easier to conceptualise. Meanings and connotations become attached to the name over time and the concept becomes even clearer. How can you truly imagine something for which you have not quite got the right words to describe and which is nameless? Are things only possible to conceptualise fully through the use of language? How much can we think - and share of our thoughts - without words? Once you name something then, do you bring it into being, somehow? Do you create what you verbalise?
It's like when you say 'I love you' for the first time. Before you spoke the words, the feeling existed somehow in a vague undefined way - and may have been felt and reciprocated, but is still somehow imperceptible and uncertain. But suddenly, as the words are spoken, they become the truth in a different - perhaps more definite - way to before you said, 'I love you'.
So someone sent me an email to respond to this.
ReplyDelete"I've had this argument before. I visualise things, understand problems and ideas as images. Words are more for explaining them to others. I can understand without words. Some people seem not to."
And I kind of agree, although without words, I am not sure that I can explain stuff to myself that clearly either.