Words are powerful.
Spoken. Heard. Written. Read.
Processed. Interpreted. Thought. Communicated.
Rinse. Repeat. Ad infinitum.
Words are the most powerful and influential force that we, as a species, have. Words…meaning symbolic and shared representations within, among, and across populations used to build mutual understanding, kinship, and community.
Words shape…everything.
Shape emotions, behaviors, cultures, histories, and lived experiences.
That’s power.
Most who call themselves people of faith hold sacrosanct certain words. And stories. (Stories are simply collections of shared symbols which communicate a larger, more complex idea than that which is interpersonally here and now.)
Considering the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions; Judaism, Islam, and Christianity; communicating the lord’s or the prophet’s names with anything other than ordained and ritualized reverence…is anathema. Sacrilegious, in fact. And those controlled, controlling words, across years and across cultures, are undeniably consequential. (This…is not about those paradigmatic consequences, per se, and the space needed to explore the full complexity of just the idea that…words are powerful tools and/or weapons of religon…could and does fill volumes.)
All of this preamble leads to an experience I had just hours ago.
I was in an end-of-the-day, restraint-collapse frame of existence. (I’ve written about restraint collapse, here.) Just…filterless, silly, filthy, and complexly improvisational in my own internal world. I’m certain you know your akin space. “In your own head.”
Some old bullshit filtered in, as it inevitably does. Bullshit as old as anti-Black racism in the U.S. and particularly as it filtered down through the family tree that would eventually produce me.
My brain came to the N-word…and it paused. Stopped in its breakless tracks. I was internally slapped sober. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t reflexively…think the word.
I write that only to illuminate an ultimate point.
Circling all the way back to the power of words.
That which is sacrosanct, meaning that which is practiced with intentional care, ritual, and single-heartedness, is a thing…a name…a…word…that one refuses to invoke with anything but existential, interdependent, reverential love.
Yes?
I realized that what my brain holds sacrosanct…is doing less harm. One cannot do less harm unless one starts, continues, and consistently focuses on…oneself. Unless one practices. It’s daily work: meditation, prayer, journaling, media consumption, social media interaction, counseling, medicine, and intentional self-monitoring through daily interactions and the myriad thoughts, emotions, and perpetual change that the nervous system experiences. I hold the alleviation of suffering as sacrosanct praxis. Interpersonal pedagogy.
If I wish to alleviate harm externally, I must practice alleviating harm internally, to both myself and psychically directed at others. Doing harm to others is doing harm to myself, and vice versa.
Do you understand?
Words are powerful.
Consider that which you consider existentially sacrosanct, particularly as you process, interpret, communicate, and spread influence…with words. Because they really are quite powerful.
Your impact in and on the world, is entirely within your control. It just requires work, and practice.
Take care and know that I unconditionally regard you as a species sibling.
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