Bodies of Text
3/23/02 7/27/09 I get lost sometimes, a little out of touch with myself. I forget and then remember again who I am and who I am not. A tree is not a tree because we call it a tree. Words are arbitrary because they have no direct significance to meaning—the idea which they represent. So they are symbols. Ideas—the way we think—is done with a system of symbols. The intangible is made tacit through symbols. Symbols are metaphors: a metaphor is an analogy between two different things which share a certain likeness. In general, symbols represent something beyond words. If we comprehend with words, then something beyond words can be said to be incomprehensible—beyond comprehension. If words represent ideas then a tree is an idea. Is the tree a physical manifestation of a metaphor? Does the actual thing, just like its name, represent something beyond words? What if we call what we cannot comprehend ‘god?’ We give many names to th...
