11/24/20
The basis of our language is comparisons.
The most versatile word in the English language may be “like”. It is used everywhere, and no matter where in the sentence you interject “like”, the sentence is understandable. I start wondering why we like to use “like” so much, and I think most people, me included, simply don’t have the ability to describe what we mean using words alone, without resorting to comparisons. Our vocabulary may not be big enough to identify the precise word with the nuance we want, or we just aren’t practiced enough in our speech to be able to pull out the exact wording from our dark, labyrinthine mind on demand.
“Like” is a core element of our communication, so much so that the metaphor and simile are literary devices, the kind of thing that language arts teachers want you to do. If your writing is very precise, conversely that’s bad. “That’s dry,” we say. The art of literature seems to be, instead of pointing to the object, we use markers and arrows to refer to the object indirectly. It is a shadow show, in which the shadows are the metaphors and similes. The shadows are what we actually work with, but it’s the shadowless places that we really mean.
But then are the blank, shadowless places possible without the shadows? We find metaphors in passages beautiful and moving. Maybe we find them so beautiful and moving because there isn’t a more precise definition or description of the matter in question. Even cold, hard definitions derive their meaning from our understanding of other things. We can’t understand something without understanding some others. Maybe nothing truly stands on its own, and eloquent language isn’t so much a matter of being able to precisely pinpoint the object, but finding the most apt supporting column. Because everything in this world is a supporting column for one another. The difference is in the distance.
