. It seems they must fall. Do they? It seems civilization compels words. To organize, to clarify, to understand. And therefore words. What are they? A pattern, a bondage, replacing an elephant with an ant? Or maybe not? When I consider how many words have already been spoken, I feel a strange anger and unease. The written word worries me. Because spoken words can still be understood—quick, sloppy, in tones. But written words—something else. Written words are different, brought to life. Literature worries me: novels, essays, prose, short stories, novellas, poems. How many words? Like the cosmos. And journalism, and journalistic texts—crafted? Like a commodity. Written words, printed words. Letters to the editor, letters from people to people. Masses of writers, masses of authors poring over the pages, masses of quivering pens, monstrous masses of words being brought to life. They write. They manipulate words, manipulate sentences, use inflection, spelling, grammar, syntax. They cobble together phrases, weld words into meaningful content. Words are there, then they're gone. Who remembers they were there? Who remembers what they wrote? Who can discern the impenetrable ocean of sentences, written by hand, written in print. Since printing became commonplace. What meanings, what's new, what's moving, what's memorable? Nothing. Those who wrote are bursting with pride. That they knew how, that they wrote, that they created. They think their words, in a metaphysical spasm, have melded into the nature of the world, uncovered the secrets of existence, contributed indelible meaning to the universal heritage. Trillions upon trillions of words. Sequences of letters, several letters long, in various combinations, with quantities calculated by mathematicians. Thanks to the alphabet, thanks to the jumble of a dozen, several dozen, several thousand individual letters. Phrases, phraseological combinations, style. Words created by word-makers. They call them writers. Writers too. Essayists, columnists. They call them. They give messages to humanity. Self-satisfied. Only sometimes will one in a thousand create words that form something surprising, something new. Only sometimes will one in a thousand words stir, come to life, resurrect, cry out with many voices. They will speak of a territory unexplored by thought, turn reality upside down. Only sometimes. For the rest, not. The rest produce empty words.
The rest waste words, words are wasted. Thrown into the trash, stiff, cold, vainly brought to life, dead. Conjured for fun, for money, for fame. Words as objects, things, commodities. Write as much as you can. I'm afraid of this, I'm afraid of wasting words. Writing nonsense, hackneyed phrases, meaningless sentences, empty columns, essays, books. Everyone wants to write, everyone thinks they're the master of words. And it pours. Words pour. They flow in a mighty stream from beneath the pens, soak into the pages. And they perish. Skeletons remain, sometimes nothing remains of them. Wasting words. Writing routinely, mechanically, stereotypically. Without thought, without meaning. Writing wholesale, easy, reckless. Slamming words, tossing them around like hay, squandering words, disregarding them. Raping words, playing with them at will, for profit, tugging at their ears, pinching them, tripping them, prodding them, kicking them. Wasting words. Expressing something inexpressible, describing something indescribable. Pathetic words that pretend to name, explain everything. Pathetic writers who believe they can touch everything with words, that they'll reach everywhere. Words—feelings, words—nature, words—humanity. Stumbling across the surface of phenomena, tapping on the locked closet of meanings, pounding on the strongbox of the essence of things. Because words can't cope, they can't, they're too clumsy, too clumsy, too brutal. They distort reality, lacerate the delicate membranes of mystery, invading in their dirty boots in indescribable realms. Into ineffable worlds. I'm terrified by those who think words are omnipotent, omniscient, omnipotent. They shoot words, lead them on a leash. That's what they think.
I'm afraid of words, afraid of writing. That I won't write anything new myself, that everything has already been written. These are not new fears. I've heard them somewhere before. But I'm afraid anyway. That now only form remains, that now it's only uppercase and lowercase letters, not content. We've been writing for centuries, expressing ourselves for centuries. And what? What else unknown is there to write, what to move, including ourselves? What else to touch? Everything has been moved, everything touched, and what is untouched cannot be touched by words. Traces of others are everywhere. The cosmos, the microcosm, technology, the dark sides of the mind, love, death. There were those who wrote. They wrote a lot. They practically vomited with words. In a word – they vomited. Words have seeped almost everywhere, contaminated almost everything. So how do we write? And what? About what? How do we express them? Unless, of course, I only want to write about myself, not think, but write, without any particular purpose, simply write down what's on my mind at a given moment, describe my states of mind, associations, dreams, the flow of my thoughts. Unless, of course, I simply do. Words as a visible sign of existence.
Writing is funny, writing makes me laugh. Slavery, a formula, a fossil. Grammar, spelling, writing rules—the limits of expression. Nothing more. How to write when I have to grammatically. I have no choice. Writing itself becomes a trap. Because they won't understand. Because otherwise, no, only like this. So here's a period, so here's a comma, so here's an ending. Without mercy. Because otherwise, it's wrong, they say. Because there's no other way. Words guide people, words like ruthless stewards with a whip for the unruly. To make everyone equal, everyone the same. It's ridiculous, ridiculous. And sad, depressing. A bottleneck of communication.
And how can you get through with a word if it transforms along the way? Into letters printed in ink, letters, cold, characterless, utterly lifeless. How does a manuscript, dynamic flourishes, a pen pressed to paper compare to the even, polite rows of printer's type? Doesn't life get lost along the way? Doesn't something die then? A manuscript is closest to the idea of writing, of reaching the reader, making an impression, of connecting with the recipient. Writing is alive. Add to this the undeniable new life of a written story, a novel, which takes on a life of its own, filled with meanings discovered by the reader, which often becomes unsettling for the writer, but unfortunately, even more often, the writer is unaware of this – writing and writing can live. Printed text loses its flavor, its expressive power. It becomes stilted, sloppy.
I fear words written too lightly, I fear writing too carelessly. I am irritated by the lack of respect for words, by treating them as objects of use. Every week brings new portions of invented code words. I am irritated by the authors' efforts, their pathos, their pride. Their conviction in possessing words. Yet, often, they murder them. Because words can live. They are not trained monkeys jumping at the call of duty. Each is unique, each has a soul. Each sentence is precious.
I think I just wasted several hundred words. Perhaps they'll also be castrated. And they'll probably die
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