Enlightenment and My Progress (Or Lack Thereof): Lesson 4

There is something to be said for the ineffable, as Wittgenstein pointed out by stating: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Some things are too complicated, too utterly indecipherable to which to try and ascribe a verbal or written meaning. Yet, for some odd reason, we have come to define silence as a symptom of lacking of a solution: a soundless void is an answerless abyss.

Not so, says I, and this insight was brought to me by none other than a one Mr. Snoogles.

He has been quiet lately, perhaps even a little self-reflective. I wonder what it would be like to reflect on a self were my self the self of Mr. Snoogles (I think my mind would collapse in the face of such a boggling identity make-up). It’s tough to say, though, what brought on Mr. Snoogles’ vow of silence. Earlier this week, as I was using the men’s room on the second floor of the building in which I work, Mr. Snoogles came in and said not a word. No karate moves, no non-sequiturs. Not even a comment on how wonderfully amusing it is that we always seem to find ourselves at the urinals at the same time. On busy days at work, I often find his off-hand comments somewhat annoying as I feel he simply uses me as a receptacle for his garbled English: the whole, “Hey! A foreigner! I’m gonna practice my English now!” kind of mentality that after four years has lost the endearing quality it once had. But, I have to admit that I was a little sad to receive no bathroom comment from him, and he has not been his usual inquisitive self at our little two-person desk community.

Recently, he has been talking to himself. He’ll often mumble strange English phrases or engage in his trance-like karate katas apparently aware of no one else around him. He has taken a journey into the depths of Snoggleness and I’d happily give my left (or right) testicle to know what he has found. His face is unreadable, a Ulysses-like stone with no expression other than the donut-like glaze I’ve mentioned before. Sure, he’ll chime in with some business-related information every now and then, or update everyone on the result of a meeting, but this seems to me to be only perfunctory, a superficial program written to cover up the fact that he has withdrawn from the world. Until this morning, I thought he was a goner, another Syd Barrett who dove so deep into his own psyche he communicates with nobody but himself. But, not to worry: our boy is back!

Every morning in the International Exchange Center, there’s a ten-minute email-checking period before the morning meeting begins at 9 a.m. It’s a silent window for everyone to arrange the day’s agenda, to see what must be done and where one can procrastinate. During this period, Mr. Snoogles is notorious for his monologues, blurting out exclamations of disbelief or verbal responses to his emails, blocking out everyone else in exchange for a one-way dialogue with his computer. But, today, as we were checking our messages, I looked up to find him staring at me with that unmistakable grin. He then said very pointedly to me:

“Creeeeeeature.”

Creature?! Who? What? Where? Just as I was about to tackle these quandaries, he whispered an aside to me, commenting on a teacher who has just come into the room to retrieve a classroom key:

“She is man.”

Then, as my Taiwan colleague walked by and examined my computer screen (as he often does because he is fascinated, it seems, with the visual appearance of written English), Mr. Snoogles asked me:

“Does he terrorize you?”

Just like that: a tommy-gun rat-tat-tat of Snooglisms to leave my mental factions agape at what hidden meaning may lie behind the utterances I just heard. I had opined that silence follows senselessness , but I stand corrected. What follows senselessness is an illumination.

Mr. Snoogles could have just as easily said what Wittgenstein himself once did:

“My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless.”

Alas! There is light at the end of the Snoogle tunnel.

OED

The nerd in me will do nearly any task, and as for compensation, there is little he will ask.

And the nerd in me certainly took over this morning when I was asked by a professor to transport a set of four boxes from the Research Center to the second floor of the building in which I work. I was informed that the four boxes contained a dictionary, the complete printed version of the Oxford English Dictionary. I personally have never seen a complete volume of the OED until today, and I must digress to the vernacular by saying that it was a complete mind-fuck. Or at least the nerd in me thought so.

20 books in the volume, each lavished with a sexy navy blue cover and gold roman numerals stenciled on the spines. Over 350 million printed characters total. 137,000 pronunciations. 2,412,400 illustrative quotations! The sheer vastness and semantic possibilities of the English Language now sit in 20 thick vessels, right next to my desk in the English Lounge where the majority of the conversations I have deal with what kind of food I like and don't like. Ironic? Perhaps. Appropriate, I’m not sure. Overwhelming? Absolutely. Listen to the erotic preface from the 1933 edition:

The aim of this dictionary is to present in alphabetical series the words that have formed the English vocabulary from the time of the earliest records down to the present day, with all the relevant facts concerning their form, sense-history, pronunciation, and etymology. It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectical usage and slang.

And, yes, you'll be happy to know the word “fuck” is actually in there and takes up half a page with all its various uses and combinations! So, is the phrase “hang out.” And “quemadero” and “rynchokinesis” are in there, too, even though the spell check on my computer has foolishly underlined them in red. In short, it’s inconceivably conceivable that every intelligible utterance in the history of English is now stacked in a cupboard in the English Lounge, and although I feel exhilarated, I'm somewhat uneasy about all this language next to me.

Volume 13 sits on my lap now. It contains only R's and Q's, and it is heavy. Of course, there is the physical weight bearing down on my thighs, but when I think about what's actually inside this midnight-colored mass, it gets heavier. Words that get used every day. Words that haven’t been used in a thousand years. Words I know, but, more likely, words I don't know. Different countries' usages of these words. Medical vocabulary. Names: fictional one's from literature, historical figures, even common first names (yes, I was egocentic enough to look up--and find--my own name). Colloquialisms. Examples. Sometimes even alphabetical characters that look like hieroglyphic drawings. Just think: everyday, ALL my written sentences and attempts at oral communication can be found somewhere in one of these 20 books. This is an amazing and altogether unsettling realization; it makes the OED not just a reference or a source—it is what is making it possible that I write these words at this very moment.

And this is unnerving for a simple yet enigmatic reason: even though I have all these words within my fingertips, there are still some things impossible to communicate. I fear what would happen should I look up a word, read through all the definitions, parts of speech and uses, etymologies, and pronunciations and it still not be enough to describe an emotion I'm feeling. How could the OED possibly capture what something like "love" means. What would “happy” and “sad" look like? How about “funny?” Or even something like “stinky?”

I’m aware that thinking like this might cause one to step into a pile of metaphysical dogshit , so I’ll digress and simply say how paradoxically wonderful and unnerving it is to be in the presence of such an extensive, glorious, wide-ranging, and undeniably insufficient piece of world history.

I believe that I will now look up the word “buttnoid” and see if there is a picture of my younger brother under the definition.

(More) More Good News!

Ha! Another short and drivelish fiction piece of mine has been posted (apparently):


http://www.yankeepotroast.org/archives/2006/05/the_goonies_law.html

It's high time Chunk did something with his life, though I've been told that he is actually a practicing entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles. Good for him, rising above his childhood stardom and all.