Feelings without Words

I've been trying to keep up with reading a meditation by Krishnamurti each day. It is a book I purchased a while ago and recently found. I decided it was better for me to grab that first thing in the morning than my cell phone.

A recent meditation urged the reader to try to feel without naming the feeling. Krishnamurti says naming what you are feeling immediately separates you from it. It makes you an observer instead of allowing you to fully experience the emotion.

As someone who constantly examines what we have gained through the technologizing of the word and what we have lost, it is interesting to me to think of the word itself as the beginning of that chain of technology.

Writing, the printing press, the Internet - each of these technological advancements has allowed us more connectivity but each one challenges us to remember (and think?) less. Did the development of a spoken language have similar costs and benefits?

We need words not for ourselves, but to connect with each other. We use words to tell each other what we feel, to use Krishnamurti's example. And as long as we can't actually be in each other's minds, talking to one another may be the best way to try and understand how another person feels.

Now think about this - we created language to communicate with each other. But, how often do you think without words? I almost never do and I find it very difficult. So why are we always talking to ourselves? Why do we name what we are feeling, when we have the real genuine feeling going on inside of ourselves right this minute. Why look at the substitute instead of the real thing?

Words are funny. They can help us come closer to meaning, but they can also separate us from it. Maybe as a librarian and storyteller I'm not supposed to say that. Really, I think there is a place for all these things. The digital word, the printed word, the spoken word, and no word at all.