Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Underground eXperts United File 566
### ###
### ###
### #### ### ### ### ####
### ### ##### ### ###
### ### ### ### ###
### ### ##### ### ###
########## ### ### ##########
### ###
### ###
Underground eXperts United
Presents...
####### ## ## ####### # # ####### ####### #######
## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ##
#### ## ## #### # # ####### ####### #######
## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ##
## ## ####### ####### # # ####### ####### #######
[ The Day All Words Lost Their Meaning ] [ By The GNN ]
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
THE DAY ALL WORDS LOST THEIR MEANING
by THE GNN/DC/uXu
Some years ago, at a conference in Amsterdam, a woman from Germany asked me
what I would do if "the words lost their meaning". I sincerely replied that
I had no answer, as the question was too hypothetical for me to relate to. I
added that I hoped that such a day would never come, because that would not
merely be the end of my creative capabilities, but also to my life as I knew
it. I declared that I could not live without being able to write. If I ever
lost that ability, I would presumably fade away in an asylum rather quickly.
Believe it or not, but I did not intend to be melodramatic in any way. At
the time, I had written hundreds of short stories in all kinds of styles and
genres, some screenplays, dozens of articles, a little poetry, half a
doctoral dissertation; and I was on my way to embark on what I considered to
be my first major project as a writer - a 'real' long novel (it was
completed the year after the conference and shortly thereafter accepted for
publication).
My urge to write was seemingly endless; my head was spinning with ideas day
and night, I loved my keyboard and word processor, I was addicted to the
feeling that a great American writer described as "being just a head with a
pencil in the mouth". When I was not actually writing, my mind was exploring
new territories regarding concepts, plots and characters. I saw pictures in
my mind, I heard monologues and dialogues. Everything inspired me. I loved
the art of text. I could not conceive words without meaning, because my life
was to a large extent framed in their meaning.
But I was wrong. One day all words lost their meaning. Not a single word
formed in my head. The voice of creativity that had constantly spoken to me
was silent. When I tried to force myself to write something, anything,
nothing good came out. And I discovered that everything I had written was
trifling and hollow. Evening after evening, night after night, I tried to
find something valuable in all the words I had accumulated during the years.
But it was hopeless. When I sat on the kitchen floor with all the magazines
I had written for scattered around me, looking at my essays and papers and
notes and speeches and stories, I just could not find anything good. I saw
lots of words indeed, but never did they form any content, any meaning. It
was just an endless array of insignificant babbling, boring concepts and
lousy plots. My novel sucked, it ought never to have been published at all.
My new manuscripts collected dust in a corner. I considered burning them.
I wondered how I had been able to carry on for such a long time without ever
noticing. Nine years. All these days, all these words, all these thousand of
pages - just a waste of space and time. I had not been a writer, merely a
typing mechanic. Why had not anyone told me?
I was more angry than ever before. I turned into a cynic. I disliked all
kinds of stuff. But what I disliked most was paradoxically that I liked it.
I took comfort in burning up from the inside. I wanted to punch my fist to
the wall until all fingers broke. To smash things was great, to really hate
people without a cause was a relief. My mind was a black hole, a void, and I
did everything I could to fill it. But what could I fill it with but rage?
Nothing was good enough. Nothing took me to the ultimate limit, the end of
the universe where there was nothing to be found but an unconditional
passion of creativity and fantasy. I saw no pictures in my head, I had no
stories. Nothing inspired me anymore. Being angry was the only thing I had
left. More pain was the best remedy against pain. I was an enraged head
without a pencil in the mouth. I hated it. I wanted to have something to
say. I wanted to write interesting texts, good texts, texts that inspired
other people, texts that learned someone something (including myself),
anything at all. But I had nothing to say.
My life as I knew it was over. At the conference in Amsterdam, I could not
even imagine such a life. But now I had no choice. I really should have
tried to answer the woman's question, not just shrug, because then I might
have learned something. I had taken too much for granted, and must learn
how to start all over again.
I tried explain to myself that my 'insights' were not absolute facts, but
rather irrational effects that stemmed from a terrible shock. My inability
to write was more of an unwillingness, I told myself. I was not a lousy
writer, I had just been painfully reminded of my limits both as a writer and
human being. I realized that I could not collect my feelings on paper when I
really needed to. A good writer can express himself. I thought of myself as
a good writer, someone who can put down just about anything on paper. I
wanted to tell the whole narrative about the four days in May this year that
changed my life entirely. That was to be the peak performance of my writing
skill. I was to express how I really felt. But I could not. Not a single
word formed in my head.
I craved to tell about the unexpected phone call early in the morning, about
the long sterile corridors and white coats at the hospital, about the
blinking and beeping respirator, about the sunny morning when all lines on
the monitors went flat, and it was all over. I wanted to tell how I slowly
walked out of the hospital with a lock of hair in my hand, how I went to my
parent's house and put it in a music box from Japan, right beside the lock
of blonde hair that my father cut from my head when I was just a couple of
weeks old, twenty-six years ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
uXu #566 Underground eXperts United 2000 uXu #566
Call THE YOUNG GODS -> +351-1XX-XXXXX
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
