Snowflakes In A Gray And Endless Winter

[G. S. Carnivals]

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Smoothing out the page Mrs. Glimm had placed in my hands, I tried to read what was printed upon it in the dimming twilight. At the top of the page, in capital letters, was a title: METAPHYSICAL LECTURE I. Below these words was a brief text which I read to myself as I walked with Mrs. Glimm. 'It has been said,' the text began, 'that after undergoing certain ordeals - whether ecstatic or abysmal - we should be obliged to change our names, as we are no longer who we once were. Instead the opposite rule is applied: our names linger long after anything resembling what we were, or thought we were, has disappeared entirely. Not that there was ever much to begin with - only a few questionable memories and impulses drifting about like snowflakes in a gray and endless winter. But each soon floats down and settles into a cold and nameless void.'       Thomas Ligotti - “A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing” Added by: G. S. Carnivals on 06-09-2007 #143

[The Silent One]

If one might accept a tangential quote, I'll regurgitate one as unto earth:

This is the signature of all things,
Words written in cross-etched ice,
Parting words spoken with tongue on teeth...

-Current 93, "Our Lady of Horsies"

The basis of all that is thought by men (and women) are names given to things, words that form names. Even the unnameable is given that label, a name. Of course, if never encountered by beings of words, things cannot be "named" except as "things"... Or, if only met in passing, "figments" or "hallucinations". All that lies beyond naming is "the unknown", and so all is named, or can be. But names vary, contradict. Words are arbitrary, facsimiles and masks for far more complex things. If any language could truely describe anything perfectly, it would not be made by gods, but make its speakers gods. If one dies, the name remains. If the name dies, one ceases to exist. But a name can never die, as it will inevitably be imagined again, because nothing is truly original, merely something that would exist at least in potential. Without words, reality is purified and laid bare, or perhaps flattened. All things that live but its simplest forms have their own language, possibly even plants and fungi. All that moves or senses gives name to things, has its own language in some form. The most complex, dolphins, but only if judging by how many defined names are given. Perhaps the simplest thing that "speaks" has the most complex, as its simplicity would have to be infinitely versatile, and yet damnably difficult for some "higher" being to comprehend due to its understanding only of itself relatively well, and even then not enough so. But at the bottom of it all we all have words for the same things on some level. And everything dies, eventually to become another thing. So is life. So is language. So is all.

...And only in so many words. Wow. That just spilled out of me in one go. No further editing except to add this last sentence and fix a period or two.