Lack of Words

"It can be said that language is misused to capture the unsuspecting and uneducated, making them overlook the truly foolish. Debating their absurdities may appear pointless, since the indifferent remain unconcerned, and for those who care, what is left to say? Yet, we might also argue that no words can fully convey the experience when it comes to this separation. There are no words to describe what happens, so it is a time of rupture, for some, decadence, even for the optimists. These are times when optimism is condemned, and unrealistic hope is preferred. Six in the morning on the last Sunday in March. Seven days of spring, snow still high in the mountains, and a bit of laziness, though not due to the time change. The coffee accompanied him, as did the sound of the wind against the windows. The atmosphere was no longer dark, but gray, a touch violet. In that laziness, he thought it was stupid to get up so early on a Sunday, in a time when everything didn't matter, for a long time, and that is part of his extraordinary freedom; he needed words, that lack of words to describe what is happening and to create. It couldn't be said that it was because of their breakup, since it was constant back then. Although perhaps it was, and that explains their strange freedom.

The lack of words is evident. Not being able to describe what happens to those who abuse, but also not being able to truly have the strength to go against the fallacy, against that violent appropriation of real meanings, and even of the obvious and of history. In times when, thanks to technology, the meanings sought in any language are used, communication is possible, but it is standardized communication. Not one that allows men to debate, understand, and construct. But rather one that simply informs and understands orders. Or that a refrain is repeated before a rhythm of civilization that, without being foreign, seems to simplify thinking, leaving only the options of silence or that repetition. He chose to stick with Camus, setting aside that elusive spiritual peace for another day. At the same time, he recognized there were some books he would never revisit, despite their presence. He reflected on those peculiar books, tucked away in places he might never get the chance to return to, not even to say goodbye.  It was not one of his novels, but one of his essays, considered dangerous and soon to be among the banned books. But it would no longer be censorship, but rather cancellation, and it was very easy to impose it in a world of emotions, especially rabid ones. It's a world of rage and frustration. And staying within that passive intimacy of love despite fear and disappointment was a task of the readings. It wasn't the only possible one, and it was imposed by the ones and the others.

Silence is then preferred, given the cowardice of claiming words and the impossibility of creating others or uniting them in a way that describes and creates concepts without definition. Also, because writing or speaking can lend itself to damaging privilege or comfort, even if one believes one has the power or is with those who have the power, that power. The more conspicuous the privilege, the more fragile it is. The more ambiguous the tenses, the more words are snatched and new meanings are absent. It's even complicated to find those that already exist in other languages, because those are either penalized or the idea has been so stale that what is written is not thought of and not even revised. So, the trick lies in playing with this standardization and untraceable expression, finding what's missing in language. Art often manages to do this, even if it's incomprehensible in its time. She was still asleep, and he marveled at her. Later, he would paint her and immortalize her naked back, and how the shadows on it, despite the morning light, told a story that went beyond the previous night together. He only kissed her briefly when he left, and she, still in her sleep, wouldn't honestly notice his absence until many hours later, while drinking coffee alone, half-naked, looking out that window at those northern mountains, the last ones before the sea. The last ones that offered her no protection, nothing. Just meaningless mountains that reminded her that beyond them lay her home. And that far beyond them lay him. And that perhaps, fortunately for her, despite the wonderful nights together, he would never return.

A picture can say over a thousand words, but those words are needed. And that image, or that rhythm, or that something created, conceived, intuited, felt (it could even be improvised or meticulously designed and constructed from reflection and a will that, in the absence of words, could be said to be conscious) will allow us to find or create the words in one of the many languages ​​that humans use. But, beyond art, the fruit of thought and reflection and what could perhaps be called consciousness, also allows us to transcend the environment and describe what would be thought indescribable and recover the meaning of what others (in their fallacy) have taken away. It requires studying and feeling. Knowing and, in a way, going beyond simple existence. He could only say that she wasn't well or mentally ill. He always had been, and he found the words to describe himself as blinded by the longing for love and not really by what she represented. Or yes, the possibility. Still, loving her, as any love implies, also involves a certain mental illness. To be passionate in the midst of frustrations and to feed on them in the face of uncertainty, or rather, in the face of the uncertainty of the continuity of frustration with it, is not praiseworthy. Wait for what will never happen - he said to himself while chewing a bit of coca leaf, passing three thousand meters above sea level, far away from her and from everything that condemned him, he found the words to explain everything, when it was already too late."