Wisdom in Words

May I share a growing interest with you?
No, it's stronger than an interest, let's call it a fascination . . . a growing fascination with words.  Not words strung together as phrases and sentences to convey information, but individual words.

Words, as I see it, exist on two levels.  They live on the level of basic communication, they also live on the level of hidden truth.  We are constantly trading them as basic communication, but how often do we delve deeper and discover the seams of wisdom hidden below the surface.

To illustrate what I mean, let's take the word 'enthusiasm'.  We all know its meaning . . .   I'm demonstrating enthusiasm at the moment in wanting to share this subject with you.  But what gave birth to this word, and what is it telling us?

If we pull the word apart, and return to its Greek source, we find that embedded in its structure is the word 'theos', the Greek word for 'god'.  'Enthusiasm', it would appear, has a divine spark.  Little wonder that it bubbles with life and carries such potency.

To convince you further, let's look at another example.  There's the Latin root 'genere', meaning 'to create' or 'to give birth'.  Where do we find it?  Tucked away inside 'genius' and 'generate' and 'generous' - all words that are bursting with creativity and new life.

As a clinching argument, what is vital for new life to establish itself?  Wouldn't you agree that it must be breath?  Once again we find this concept embedded in our language.  The Latin root 'spirare', to breathe, has itself breathed life into 'inspire' and 'aspire'.  Who could deny the life force breathing through these two words - the vitality that empowers inspiration and aspiration.
As for the word 'vitality', this comes from the Latin 'vitalis', meaning 'life-giving'.  Yet more evidence of the original life-force still existing in our language.


Words, it would seem, were not merely coined to give objects a name or to enable us to express ourselves.  They are, in themselves, an embodiment of what they represent.  They vibrate with the frequency of their truth.

What has also struck me whilst writing this has been the power we are handling when using such words.  The dynamite, if you like, that we are unconsciously igniting.
In the beginning was the Word . . . and look what's transpired since then!

Perhaps that's my cue to draw this fascinating subject to a close.
Words are wise . . . words are  powerful.
If we'd aspire to their wisdom, perhaps we should handle them with more care?

The silence we've broken

I sometimes get a sense of living in a carefully constructed play.  There are cues, there are prompts, there are notes in the margin.  These prompts, or synchronicities, are like a blue pencil marking the script, and one such synchronicity occurred the other day.
May I share it with you?

The first sign of the blue pencil came when I read a quotation sent by a friend in an email.

"Let the words you speak," it said, "be worthy of the silence you've broken."

I was very taken by that statement.  In fact I decided to expand my thoughts in a letter to you:

"Do we," I wrote, "truly value the space that words occupy, the silence they come from?
As an experiment, could I ask you to pause in your reading for just a moment and say each of these two words aloud . . . slowly and reflectively.
Are you ready?
'Space' . . . 'Silence' . . .


Your experience may well have been completely different from mine.  But, for me, the word 'space', when spoken aloud, stretches out and almost literally pushes away the clutter in my mind, enabling me to pause and reflect.  
In much the same way, 'silence', when spoken aloud, first hangs in the air and then recedes leaving the quality of the silence behind . . . a silence that is not empty or dead, but full of content and potential.  Space and silence are powerful.  
Do we, I sometimes wonder, think that space is only for filling, and silence only for breaking?"


At that point in my musings the morning paper arrived.  Leaving the computer, I made myself a cup of coffee, then sat down to browse through 'The Times' and tackle my daily Sudoku.
Half-way through the paper I had a surprise, the blue pencil had struck again.  In an article entitled, 'Music isn't the food of life, so don't play on'. Giles Coren had written:

" . . . Time was, the only musical notes you heard in the Olympic arena were national anthems.  The bruising military triumphalism of the old Soviet marching song in eternal binary opposition to the unfettered silliness of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' . . . Not any more.  This year the Olympics will follow Champions League football,  Twenty 20 cricket, WWF Wrestling, 'Gladiators' and Spearmint Rhino by using loud pop music to "enhance" the action . . . The Olympics is about physical endeavour, human ideals, international politics and sporting excitement.  Why must there by music? . . . Music used to be rare and special.  You travelled long distances to hear it, spent money to buy it, relished it when it was there and missed it when it was gone.  Now you'd have to travel a million miles to get away from it;  it is free, it is rubbish, it is a ubiquitous low-resolution ear-carpet of horror . . . "


I get the feeling that Giles Coren doesn't consider the music chosen for the Olympics to be worthy of the silence it will be breaking.

I hope the cosmic script-writer won't see the need to prompt me again on this subject.  As proof that I've taken the message on board, I've a plan in mind.

When the streets of London are thronged with Olympic visitors, when the all-pervading music drowns the applause in the Olympic venues,  remind me to start each day with a few moments of gentle reflection.
And what better theme for that reflection than those two words we mentioned before . . .

'Space' . . . and . . . 'Silence'