The Word
March 2026
Something I’ve been thinking about recently is the simultaneous creative and destructive power of language. Words more than any other mode of expression shape the way we interact with the world and those around us. And while words provide a medium for understanding and knowledge, they provide just as strong walls to the truths we may look to express. As an example, consider the difficulty in expressing certain everyday yet complex thoughts but in a non-native language. Immediately, the expression of the idea begins to lose its necessary and inherent jagged edges and spikes that gave it the character in need of expression; the idea must be reduced to a form able to be expressed in word. But as more terms in this new language are learned, one is then able to express those edges and contours of the idea more fully, making the idea more tangible both for one’s self and the surrounding world.
Similarly we can examine the practice of labeling–one of the principal uses of language. We label and categorize objects, people, patterns of life to make sense of what is new, unforeseen. With a label, we can simultaneously create (that which was not a “bottle” is now a bottle because it has been labeled so and accepted as such) and tear away. We slice away facets of a person's essence when a label is cast; this is in large part why artists spurn labels incessantly. Artists are attempting to inculcate ideas felt but not yet known. So when others attempt to cast a word on that feeling, the feeling can be killed (see Bob Dylan’s 2004 60 Minutes interview)–or at least the pursuit of crafting something real to evoke that feeling. This is shown as well in that artists universally will keep a goal or hidden truth close to the chest in order to not let that magic slip away into the brokenness of words.
But words are not pure destruction; they create all we know that is not purely felt. Words create a reality in their intonation and mere act of being spoken. This is made clear in Dante’s Divine Comedy by the base phonetics of “inferno” vs the high phonetics “paradiso.” Two words with meanings shaped over time by the phonetics of the words themselves. Words bring us more fully into the expression of beauty and help to make sense of what was formally solely felt. But let words not be the enemy of that feeling, the quick boxing in of the feeling in formation. Some ideas may just need to be sat with longer before a word is cast.