Window Who?

Would you call time vis­i­ble language?

It’s just a question.

If vis­i­ble lan­guage is “a trans­for­ma­tion of the phys­i­o­log­i­cal impulse towards syn­tax into a final prod­uct, speech, which is not heard with the ears, but beheld with the eyes… This means that at the organ­is­mic level we asso­ciate a higher sig­nal clar­ity with visual input, and on DMT and other trypt­a­mine psy­che­delics you actu­ally expe­ri­ence the field of lan­guage both heard and self gen­er­ated as some­thing that is vis­i­bly beheld. It’s almost as though the project of com­mu­ni­ca­tion becomes high-speed sculp­ture in a con­cep­tual dimen­sion made of light and intentionality.”

“To My Teenage Self”

I’ve been talk­ing to this blog­ger for many rea­sons. One of them is because of my job. The oth­ers are obvi­ous. When I asked her who she most wanted to reach with her blog, she said:

“The answer to this is easy: teenage girls. I’ve said on sev­eral occa­sions that I’m writ­ing the blog for my teenage self, and in so many ways, that’s true. I wish she had under­stood how amaz­ing and strong and full of poten­tial she was. I wish she’d been more out­go­ing, pur­sued her secret dreams, tried out for cheer­lead­ing, acted in the school play, and done sports even if she wasn’t the best at it. I wish she’d believed that peo­ple thought she was pretty–and that if they didn’t, it was their prob­lem, not hers. I wish she hadn’t been gov­erned so much by fear and self-loathing, had been a lit­tle braver and a whole lot more con­fi­dent. I wish she’d known how beau­ti­ful she was. And there are armies and armies of teenage girls out there who feel that same par­a­lyz­ing inse­cu­rity. And those are the girls I’m talk­ing to when I say beauty stan­dards are impos­si­ble. Self-loathing is a waste of time. You should do all you can to under­stand the cul­tural forces that are try­ing to con­trol you. You are so, so beau­ti­ful. Love yourself.”

Time. Metaphor. Lan­guage. Clar­ity. (Non)Sense.

How much of our real­ity our lan­guage do we write and build and shape for our “self” of “another time”? If time is visual lan­guage, if it is a prod­uct of our syn­tax of sight, time is one of the most heart­break­ing (yes, that com­plex emo­tion, dare I say it again, heart­break­ing) col­lec­tive art pieces of all time. Would you dare!

If the build­ing blocks/pixels/cells of lan­guage is words, what then, my dear­est reader, is time? Is it a words counter part, it’s other? No. I don’t think so. If it is itself a syn­tax, influ­enc­ing syn­tax, but a cre­ation thereof, could it then be… yes, that is what I am get­ting at, just words. It is lan­guages teenage self, mak­ing her regret even though she (time) is a com­plete cre­ation of the present (and there is no past), always self. Maybe.

I guess what I’m say­ing is, I was think­ing about how often that idea resur­faces, “What I wish some­one would have said to me,” and that per­son makes a point of being that per­son that says those words. This desire we have has every­thing to do with regret and con­se­quently time. But time is full of incon­sis­ten­cies. “I am say­ing this to myself.”

Any­ways.

The Con­tainer Store on the Avenue of the Stars is the worst place in the world. Just TRY and make a deci­sion in there. I dare you. Actu­ally, I do not wish that hor­ror on any­one. It is a mock­ery. I am sorry for ever think­ing it would improve my life or sooth my anxiety.

Knock Knock.

Who’s there?

Win­dow.

Win­dow who?

Win­dow we Ketchup?

3 Comments »

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  1. First, it reminded me of this (which I did).

    I like the idea of imag­in­ing what you wanted to hear most as your teenage self to help other peo­ple. I don’t like the idea of regret­ting some­thing you did or didn’t do. It’s impos­si­ble or doesn’t mat­ter or some­thing like that.

    “You should do all you can to under­stand the cul­tural forces that are try­ing to con­trol you.“
    Man, I really like this lady. Maybe we should all do this. Even today. Right?

    I HATE THE CONTAINER STORE.

    Comment by Matthew — July 3, 2008 #

  2. Also, seri­ously. When do we catch up?

    Comment by Matthew — July 3, 2008 #

  3. Yes, I would call time a vis­i­ble lan­guage. YOU SAID IT ABSOLUTELY. Thank you for asking.

    Time, what­ever it may be, only exists and makes itself known to us as nar­ra­tive. And I think that, like language/words, it needs oth­ers (peo­ple, objects, fields) to express itself in rela­tion to. Like, time only exists in the space between kind of idea.

    Also, as you know, I’ve been think­ing a lot about how lan­guage alien­ates us from our­selves, and I think that’s another parallel/link you can draw between lan­guage and time… “This desire we have has every­thing to do with regret and con­se­quently time. But time is full of incon­sis­ten­cies. ‘I am say­ing this to myself.’” Both fail us and out­run us.

    You’re cool.

    Comment by Alisha — July 3, 2008 #

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