One of our mightiest possessions is the word. Words have the power to build, to store and create, as well as tear down and destroy. We think with words, we organize our world with words. We communicate with words, we inform with words, we build relationships with words. Our worlds are very much limited by the words we use. Sometimes we become so caught up with words that we forget that they are just symbols for things, and we begin to see them as a substitute for the things they are meant to represent.
It's important to remind ourselves that words are just phonetic symbols put side by side. By themselves they're nothing. Most of the words we know were learned before we were six or seven years old, to early to fully analyze or understand them. These words were defined for us and we accepted them as presented. For example, if the significant people in our lives felt strong hate toward a particular person or thing, the words they taught us concerning these things became part of our attitude as well. The words soon represented a constellation of thoughts and feelings surrounding those things. Soon we found that were thinking and responding negatively to them. Of course, this couldn't be helped. Nevertheless, it was in this way that we learned what to hate or fear or avoid.
Just as we acquired the words for goodness, hope, optimism, joy and love, we ;earned also to attach negative symbols and discovered early the power of directing them we pleased. We found that words could hurt. As a child, I can remember the standard retort for words bullies: Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me! Occasionally this brought a rock or a stick my way, but it was more difficult not to feel the sting of such words as skinny freak, dumb retard. I wonder how many of us still feel the pain of labels that devastated us long ago.
Perhaps one of the great human tragedies is that few of us even stop to ask whether the words we think with and which cause us to fee so strongly are ours or simply echoes which continue to reverberate in our minds. If we stopped to redefine these words, we might discover that many of them are no longer relevant to the present. Words we learned as children may have prevented us from truly experiencing and understanding other persons or things as they really are. For many of us these words continue to serve in their capacity to reject, exclude and judge.
The great humanitarian-scientist, Buckminster Fuller, said that one of the most significant events of his life was when he stopped everything and wrote his own dictionary. He redefined words according to his experience, as what they represented in his reality, not that of others. This effect forced him to re-examined his values and reassess his attitudes. It gave him a far deeper appreciation of the power of words for the remainder of his life.
As adults we know that certain behavior is discarded early in life because it is childish and inappropriate. As wise adults we learn that certain words and labels should be discarded as well because they are hurtful or destructive, and if that means passing the opportunity to tell the latest joke, then we are all the more fortunate for that insight.
There can be no word large enough to encompass the wonder of a human being. To judge others by a single label is to miss them entirely. As a child I may have been a Latin immigrant, or skinny, or a number of things, but I was much more than each one of them. Thanks goodness for those special individuals who learned to look beyond the labels and to know me as a whole person. It's not surprising that they turned out to be the people most worth knowing.
Words so often desensitize us. They can paralyze our senses as well as our better instincts. Words are powerful things which too often take casually. They were created to help us give organization to chaos. But, unless we are careful, they become traps which lead us to apathy, hate and loneliness. we mustn't allow words to control us. They are our tools to enlarge, not narrow, our lives.
It's important to remind ourselves that words are just phonetic symbols put side by side. By themselves they're nothing. Most of the words we know were learned before we were six or seven years old, to early to fully analyze or understand them. These words were defined for us and we accepted them as presented. For example, if the significant people in our lives felt strong hate toward a particular person or thing, the words they taught us concerning these things became part of our attitude as well. The words soon represented a constellation of thoughts and feelings surrounding those things. Soon we found that were thinking and responding negatively to them. Of course, this couldn't be helped. Nevertheless, it was in this way that we learned what to hate or fear or avoid.
Just as we acquired the words for goodness, hope, optimism, joy and love, we ;earned also to attach negative symbols and discovered early the power of directing them we pleased. We found that words could hurt. As a child, I can remember the standard retort for words bullies: Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me! Occasionally this brought a rock or a stick my way, but it was more difficult not to feel the sting of such words as skinny freak, dumb retard. I wonder how many of us still feel the pain of labels that devastated us long ago.
Perhaps one of the great human tragedies is that few of us even stop to ask whether the words we think with and which cause us to fee so strongly are ours or simply echoes which continue to reverberate in our minds. If we stopped to redefine these words, we might discover that many of them are no longer relevant to the present. Words we learned as children may have prevented us from truly experiencing and understanding other persons or things as they really are. For many of us these words continue to serve in their capacity to reject, exclude and judge.
The great humanitarian-scientist, Buckminster Fuller, said that one of the most significant events of his life was when he stopped everything and wrote his own dictionary. He redefined words according to his experience, as what they represented in his reality, not that of others. This effect forced him to re-examined his values and reassess his attitudes. It gave him a far deeper appreciation of the power of words for the remainder of his life.
As adults we know that certain behavior is discarded early in life because it is childish and inappropriate. As wise adults we learn that certain words and labels should be discarded as well because they are hurtful or destructive, and if that means passing the opportunity to tell the latest joke, then we are all the more fortunate for that insight.
There can be no word large enough to encompass the wonder of a human being. To judge others by a single label is to miss them entirely. As a child I may have been a Latin immigrant, or skinny, or a number of things, but I was much more than each one of them. Thanks goodness for those special individuals who learned to look beyond the labels and to know me as a whole person. It's not surprising that they turned out to be the people most worth knowing.
Words so often desensitize us. They can paralyze our senses as well as our better instincts. Words are powerful things which too often take casually. They were created to help us give organization to chaos. But, unless we are careful, they become traps which lead us to apathy, hate and loneliness. we mustn't allow words to control us. They are our tools to enlarge, not narrow, our lives.
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