Words Are Not Enough (Student Choice)

March 28, 2022 

Recently, I had a friend come to me to explain a spiritual situation that occurred to him. He felt as if he had been grasped by the gospel in a more intense way than ever. Despite this, he felt like he was not able to put his feelings into words. I wonder how this relates to language and the inability of language to fully express the things we want to say. The way I see it, putting things into words is the first "translation" that occurs. Next, we can translate these words into writing which is another translation. By the time the words reach writing, they have gone through two separate instances of translation, making even further from the original idea than it started. For this reason, oral traditions, while they change often, are less inhibited and translated. Written cultures, on the other hand, are more concrete because they are written down. Despite this, they are further from the original meaning. I'm not sure this totally applies though, because we can now simply record what someone says and write it down word for word. I'm not sure where this discussion ends up, but I think it is an interesting conversation about how oral and written cultures are more and less removed from reality. The former being less removed and the latter more. 

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