I revere language and words, how I feel about them is something close to holy reverence. Words are power and like all forms of power they can be used and abused, used wisely or wasted. Even the bible has something to say about words – used wisely they are a goad to action, but endless study is wearisome to the body and of the writing of books there is no end.
One of the problems we face today is that words have become little more than light entertainment, their value and meaning lost in a flood tide of over use and loss of value, meaning and context. What use is 24 hour news to me if there is nothing I can do about it, if it leaves me impotent and empty of action, if it is just an emotive stream of waste, like effluent that merely pollutes my mind but leads to nothing?
I am both repulsed and fascinated by chatter, the sound of a cafe full of people and the hubbub of talk. But see the people, connecting, affirming, disagreeing, delighting in agreement, navigating the seas of friendship, making business deals, passing time, agreeable in companionable shared time, drawing closer, drawing away, togetherness or isolated in the especial loneliness of the crowd.
Words are the language of thought, but they are far from being all that thought is. Thoughts, like dreams, can be images, movies in our minds, but we lack the ability to share such imagery other than through the medium of words. The words that emerge from us all begin life as a thought though and they should never be used lightly, as they say, careless words cost lives. That is a great truth.
I have worked with people all my life and witnessed how words can destroy lives. I have known many people who have never known a genuinely kind word and who reacted with fear and mistrust and even hatred at an honestly spoken affirming statement as simple as, ‘Well done’. I have watched with sorrow as they recoil, back off, suddenly needing to retreat, away from something they cannot accept, something too alien to deal with. In that moment, kindness and empathy weakens them in their ability to survive the harshness of their existence. Years of building barriers against hurt and the energy it takes to survive in harshness and brutality has to be respected, without that fundamental respect for their life there is no progress. As a community and youth worker, I needed the mutual support and backing of ‘my team’, because it can be heart breaking work. We survived with words, and hugs from time to time, but words were the tools of our trade blended in action and interaction, whether round a pool table, in some community project or sitting having a coffee. Words sculpt lives. That is enormous power and an enormous responsibility.
I am an avid reader, I always have at least one book on the go, fiction or nonfiction. A good book is a world unto itself transporting me to hitherto unknown places, worlds and times. I am a great believer in the great escape that books can provide from the labours of life, but equally in the life treasures they can bring and put into action until the words of a book gain meaning in life and become part of me.
The greatest life changing gift for me was the opportunity to go to Durham University to study Community and Youth work. It was a course of study with regular training placements, essays, tutorials and research, and it was terrifying. It shook my world to its foundations, all my preconceived ideas, my small tight working class world of all that was familiar to me was taken out and shaken to destruction, transformative destruction. What would be the point of entering such a world of education if it didn’t challenge and change me? What I had no idea of was the degree to which I would be challenged, or changed, such that at one point I went to my tutor in terror and tears and said, ‘I can’t carry on’. And she, with the only tools available, her words, kept me going, believed in me, helped me find the courage to carry on, even and despite the terror. I did and I can look back with awe and gratitude for the priceless gift that I came out with and which is with me to this day, the hunger to learn, an appetite for exploration without imposing all my preconceived ideas upon it, because learning means change. And it’s words and action that produce change, they exist together dynamically. Thoughts, words and actions are the power of being with which change is wrought and out of which life is forged in the furnace of experience.
If you’ve made it this far in this article, this is the power of one, but I am not a self made man, I am the result of the many who have educated me and given me more than I could ever have gained alone. I am the result of a vast interaction that defies any words to describe other than in gratitude, not least to those who taught me what words are in the first place.
I’d like to finish with a good word, a word rich in meaning, a word to live with and worth living for. Inspiration. In a world drowning in words, which ones are worth putting our attention on and filling ourselves with? It’s a choice, and I choose those words, pictures, videos and actions that inspire me; things that inspire wonder and feed me and fill me with inner nourishment. It’s important to take an interest in the world and to try to keep up with current events, grim thought they may be, but it’s a kindness to our selves to restrict that diet.
When the going gets tough, find something that inspires, whatever it may be. In a world gone bonkers (and it has) and full of terrible things, assaulting us on every side, seeking inspiration is a revolutionary act, full of power. Power for change, especially if it changes us on the inside and fills us with a desire to let it out.
I’d like to close with this thought, there is no more inspiring thing we do as living creatures than play, which may seem an odd thing to end an article about words on, but how else can I tell it? In play we are transformed into creative beings and whilst play has enormous purpose in life for both humans and animals, it is best done simply for its own sake and to be fully engaged with it. It locates us in the right now and it’s transformative. Check out the video below then go and kick some leaves or something and have yourself a good day, you deserve it just because…
https://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital?language=en
