| "it is a word. words are pale shadows of forgotten names." - master elodin - 'the name of the wind'it has been a long time since i have laid fingers to the keyboard to type out anything for my xanga, longer still since i have typed anything of significance. perhaps it has been due to a lack of emotional distress, or maybe i have less need of sharing. nevertheless, tonight i blog because of an epiphany, or at least an insight. i have been out of school for a couple of years now, and while i do not regret leaving my education (at least in an academic sense), i do miss the moments of debate with other sharp minds. (though in my opinion, mine is the sharpest) it is rare to find oneself debating with a book, at least out loud, but i do find moments of enlightenment from them. i have been reading patrick rothfuss' "the name of the wind" and on the subjects of words and names i felt a moment of joy that one can only feel when they realize they share an opinion with another. mind you, it's more like a validation of my own opinions since the one that agrees with me is published. here i mean no disrespect, but since i had the opinion before i read the opinion elsewhere, then it is the publication who agrees with me and not vice versa, regardless of the source. but, i digress. perhaps it would be better if i started with why i feel the need to be validated. as the youngest child of a chinese family (and the first one born in canada) i have always felt like my voice is lost in the wind. perhaps it is due to the duality of my upbringing, or the baby child syndrome, but i have always felt that my insights were purer, or more correct, maybe naive would be best. regardless, the point of the matter is, one does not believe how one thinks to be wrong, maybe misunderstood, but never wrong. so it is with how i think about words, how i try to become proficient with it (to master it would be beyond conceit, although it has crossed my mind), how i attempt to distill words to their truest form. at least for myself. so it is this reason that i turn again and again back to books, for where else could i find a master of words if not from one who earns their living from it? so when it happens that one of my ideas (and these i believe to be original because i formulate them first and not necessarily adopt them) is described in a book or used as a method of explanation, i am always thrilled and defensive at the same time. why? because i like that i am not the only one on this world who has these thoughts and it is nice to see someone else put them on paper. yet, why do i feel defensive if i am thrilled to find a kindred thought? because i do not want my idea to become corrupted by theirs. you see, by consuming their version of my idea i can't help but incorporate the nuances and differences into mine. this hurts the evolution of my idea as much as it pushes it along. finally, it has the ability of neutralizing my idea because mine is not published. this opens the door for someone else to attack my idea by saying i got it from so and so in this or that book. so you see, just like "words are pale shadows of forgotten names." so too are names, but snapshots of ideas in that moment. |
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