01 Mar Words Do Not Express Thoughts
My wife says that I like to argue, but conveniently enough to prove her point I tend to disagree. In order to convey a thought words have to convey a certain meaning but in that wake their tends to be gray areas and untruths. When someone makes a point I cannot help but think about the opposite. When people ask me my thoughts on the outcome of an upcoming fight or more importantly about best practices in applying a technique it is difficult to provide a definite answer. My most common refrain is “It Depends”. More recently I have enjoyed Jack Slack’s quote “ ‘technique’ is just a method to improve your rate of success”. Either way, no words can reflect the choice you need to make and life often forces you to hold two seemingly opposite truths as equal in your mind in order to achieve balance. For example: being content contrasted against striving for greatness.
I sat down and re-read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse and forgot about some of the great lessons in the book. Most notably for me when he discusses the concept I had spent so much time ruminating on.
Govinda said: “It seems to me, Siddhartha, that you still like to jest a little I believe you and know that you have not followed any teacher, but have you not yourself, if not a doctrine certain thoughts? Have you not discovered certain knowledge yourself that has helped you live?…
Siddhartha said: Yes I have had thought and knowledge here and there. Sometimes, for an hour or for a day, I have become aware of knowledge, just as one feels life in one’s heart. I have had many thoughts, but it would be difficult for me to tell you about them. But this is one thought that has impressed me Govinda. Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish…. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. I suspected this when I was still a youth and it was this that drove me away from teachers. There is one thought I have had, Govinda, which you will again think is jest or folly: that is, in every truth the opposite is equally true. for example, a truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided. Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity.
Keep that in mind for everything you are taught, read, or hear. And now I will leave this post with one final bit of wisdom from Siddhartha: “I will say no more about it. Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.”