Real Cherries

Is language the adequate expression of all realities, Nietzsche asks. Well, no. I think we all understand that. But what, one wonders, what would it be like, no words in my head? Nothing. How would that affect perception? Would I see, hear, touch, taste with greater acuity? Does language blunt our perception? It does increase awareness. There’s something about putting names on things that makes them more defined. Clearer. Keener. Finer. How many different ways are there to see – to appreciate – a chair? The chair is a product of language. It was built using words as well as nails, pegs, glue, and lathework, the chair legs becoming spindly fluted and knobbed appendages, the flatness of the seat puffed out a bit with whatever they stuff under the upholstery to soften the hardness of it, make it amenable to the buttocks. It took language to bring the conception of the chair into concrete reality. Not necessarily English. Any language: Portuguese, Javanese, Bengali, Russian, Bhojpuri, Yoruba, Igbo, Sindhi, Dutch and on and on and on. All capable of producing a chair. Which is la chaise in French, la silla in Spanish, cathair in Scots Gaelic, Isu in Japanese, Kurasī in Punjabi, sandal in Mongolian. Sitting is oturma in Turkish, synedríasi in Greek. All these different sounds, do they make a difference? A shift in perception, a different angle, a different sensitivity, awareness, realization? Though maybe it’s more in the grammar, the way different people structure reality by structuring their language, as if language were a medium as palpable as stone, dependable as bricks, rough as sandpaper and supple as the tongue of a cat. Are all languages structured around the idea of a noun – a thing, a non-thing, a phenomena – and a verb, which is a kind of engine – and an object and a position in space all oriented with a sprinkling of prepositions? There are grammars I can’t imagine, but if I were exposed at some level, learned enough for a shallow immersion, that would so shift my outlook and proprioceptive occupation of time and space as to help bring about a new being. Identity is a fiction, must be the easiest thing in the world to change. But no, I’ve seen very few people change over time. Same with opinions. People never budge on opinions. Something there is in the language that sets like cement. Takes poets and musicians to shatter that hardened bone and let a little light in. What is a word, Nietzsche asks. The image of a nerve stimulus in sound, he answers. I think it’s a small lacquered netsuke. Nougat. Nugget. Cordial cherries. 10 pieces. Net Wt. 6.6 oz. Artificially flavored. Classic good taste. Dark chocolate. Lift to indulge, it says on the box. Real cherries. May contain pits or pit fragments. Viking remains. Helmet and sword. The bones of a dog. The wings of a dragon. But to infer from the nerve stimulus, Nietzsche continues, a cause outside us, that is already the result of a false and unjustified application of the principle of reason. But why bring reason in? We should leave it outside to soak in the rain.