The Limitations of Words

Human beings are limited by our ability to express in language alone. If we were able to transmit our thoughts and feels to others in an empathic form of communication, we might then be fully able to understand one another. Until then, we need to use rudimentary language in an attempt to understand what another person is thinking and feeling. Although there are empirical studies that can show feelings have a demonstrated type of heart rate or other physiological response, there is no way to know that the way I feel fear and depression is the same way you feel fear and depression - if you feel depression at all.

Our lack of language is the primary factor in our inability to express and appreciate the emotions we feel. I find myself only able to express that I am feeling something and then make some sort of attempt to identify what caused it an where it is coming from. 

I've been thinking a lot about affect theory and the way our own bodies collide with other bodies through emotion. I was at a spa today and I suddenly felt as though the person giving me my facial was thinking about choking my neck. Perhaps she was and this was somehow transmitted through her body to mine, although she did not intend it to be so. How often are our thoughts communicated without our knowledge only to betray us? I know that my facial expressions readily reveal what I am thinking and feeling before I've cognitively processed it. This means that my body knows to react physiologically before I've named it. This goes counter to a sense of social construction of meaning and feeling. Should I name my feeling and recognize it before I show it to the world?

I find myself striving to prove my notions but I don't know that I will be able to or that it is even important. Who wants to read the collected babbling and catharsis seeking rants I've amassed? It is not a lot, to be sure. I am again limited by my language. The complexities swirling around inside of me are still vague and dark. My mind is a swamp that I am trying to develop through the knowledge I am amassing, but alas, the more I know the more I realize I don't know. 

I know in a sense that I am as intelligent or more than most people, but still find myself plagued with a sense of inadequacy. I'm not sure if these are a result of the demands of graduate school or my depression. I still haven't named my depression. Although it doesn't have a name, it exists and is real. It haunted me before I could define or describe it. It was hiding underneath the surface all along. 

I have many things to do, but I need to make a commitment to writing. To journalling. Although it is a pain in the ass I will be glad I took the effort later.