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a meeting, but this seems to me to be only perfunctory, a superficial program written to cover up the fact that he has withdrawn from the world.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.