Words That Look Back

Communication is part of the world we live in.
It can be done with care, with attention… with love.
Or it can be done casually, without much regard for what is being set in motion.

Words carry weight.

I used to think words were there to describe experience.
To label what was already happening.

Now, my experience shows them to be so much more.

Some words seem to do something else entirely.

They point.
They reveal.

The illuminate.

And occasionally, if you stay with them long enough…
they begin to look back.

Words are pliable.
They depend on context.
On the atmosphere into which they are spoken.
On what is meant… and what is heard.

Do you mean what I mean when we use the same word?
What is the word pointing toward?
How does it land in my body?

And then there is something more subtle.

The relationship we have with the words themselves.

Over the years, working with self-observation, I’ve found that words can become a kind of tool.
Not just for communication with others…
but for seeing myself.

They reveal ideas I didn’t know I was holding.
Attitudes that move beneath the surface.
Feelings I may not have wanted to admit.

Used in this way, words begin to show their secrets.
Not hidden.
Just… unnoticed.

And sometimes, a word doesn’t pass through.

It stays.
It follows.
It appears at moments when I would rather not see it.

It asks something.

The words I’ll be writing about over the next few weeks are simple enough.

sublimate
disdain
attraction
aversion

Nothing particularly exotic.
At least, not at first glance.

But each of them, in its own way, stopped being just a word.
Each of them became something that caught my attention.
Something that showed me what I hadn’t been seeing.

There’s a difference between a word you use
and a word that stays with you.

You may already know a few of these.

Words that seem to follow you.
Words that show up at inconvenient moments.
Words that don’t quite leave you alone.