Revealing the origin of the word ‘word’
When a wallet is empty, there is at least the wallet remaining. It is the wallet that tells us loud and clear how we do not have any money. The wallet provides therefore a message that, perhaps surprisingly, is not about the wallet at all.
Language has a similar quality. We use words daily for communicating to one another both important and not-so-important messages. Yet the words are just the vehicles. Each word is like the wallet, showing us different contents that in some cases mean ‘nothing’ or ‘emptiness’, and in other cases do have a content, for instance, with ‘money’, ‘tree’, ‘beauty’, or ‘planet’.
All words are just words, a convention agreed on by the ancient speakers of our language, inevitably modified to fit our modern needs.
- Words are tools we learned to help express ourselves.
So, where did the word ’word’ come from?
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By comparing the word ‘word’ as used in Dutch, a peculiar meaning shows up that sheds some light on its special character.
“Ik word ziek”
“I am getting sick” or “I am becoming sick”
“Ik word beter”
“I am becoming better”
The interesting part is that this word ‘word’ does not just indicate a state of being for there is an additional tweaking involved as well, a change inherently included with the word.
It is as if the wallet is closed at first and then opened up to reveal the contents. Once we see the contents, we receive the message.
The Dutch word ‘word’ includes the act of starting with a closed wallet, indicating the word is truly about a result. Some examples may help clarify this.
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Let’s start out how the word tree does not include such an action. It simply is the word to use for a plant that can grow a whole lot bigger and taller than we are. The word tree is therefore simply a label applicable to all plants that are trees.
In another example, the word beauty is a concept we understand when we see it. This word is a label, too, but then of the special kind that exists particularly in the eye of the beholder. One may feel butterflies in the stomach region, or other pleasant experiences, but the word beauty itself is straight forward. It is what it is.
- Becoming by itself, however, shows us there is something more special going on. It provides an indication that the ancient minds understood the overall nature of words, captured the specific complexity of all words, and appointed a generic status with that one word word.
One can read in this that words are never real in origin. The word tree did not exist at first, whereas the trees themselves did already exist.
Once the word tree got applied to trees, then it stuck. The tree had become the word. From that moment on the word tree and the actual tree had become one and the same thing.
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Language is a tool. It is not the actual reality itself.
Language is truly handy for human beings to communicate with one another; some can use words in very refined manners. Yet sometimes folks can fall into a well of perceiving certainty where certainty does not exist, and then fail to climb out of the well.
For instance, when all words are made identical to the real items, then some things that do not have words may appear to not exist. When there are no words, then it must not be real, right?
- To provide an example, I have to use words in this article, so the reader is asked to work this subject matter a bit more than is otherwise the case.
When there is ‘nothing’ in the wallet, for instance, then the wallet is empty. Yet staring at that ‘nothing’ itself is the deeper exercise. Don’t worry, the ‘nothing’ remains just plain old nothing here.
The dictionary is the fast route to understanding that the ancient speakers of our language were thinking in concepts already. ‘Nothing’ is a concept and not an actual item. The same is true for ‘everything’ being a concept.
- A dictionary would not be complete if it did not contain the word nothing as an entry.
In reality, nothing is truly nothing, so we have a word here that does not point to anything real. We have something extra, even though there is truly nothing extra at all.
How is that possible?
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Descriptions written down in the Popul Vu, the Mayan book of the Dawn of Life, start out with presenting a pre-life situation:
There is not yet one person, one animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, meadow, forest.
- Did you notice the word hollow on the list of what not yet existed?
All other words on this list are what they are, but the word hollow points to that what is not there. Nevertheless, it was added to the list of everything that had not yet arrived before the Dawn of Life. This is ingenious. Even the lack of something had not yet come into being. No surprise therefore that the Maya already had zero as one of their numbers.
Words are creations established by human beings. They portray what human beings portray. They capture the contents of our minds. Yet the mind can also fail to see that the mind itself is just a tool, and not the true reality.
The brain can think it is the Self, while in reality it is a tool of the Self.
We can fail to see that we are our entire person and instead may place our Self with our brain (or place our Self with our heart, or with our God, or with our… fill in the blank).
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It is not just images that are artificial tools humans use to communicate with one another.
We use money, which is artificial.
We use language, which is artificial.
We use math, which is artificial (i.e. abstractions).
We use methods, artificial at heart.
While there may be natural aspects to the artificial outcomes, the point to show is that modern man lives mostly in a human, artificial world in which the actual natural state is almost experienced as a byproduct.
The true problem is that the artificial reality contains an extra dimension that does not exist in nature, and we often do not realize it. In the simplest of manners, the word nothing points out that humans can stand in a spot with their minds that does not exist.
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Let’s take a deep dive into negativity because an issue can sometimes be exposed in the clearest and fastest manner this way.
With money, most folks know that you can’t eat it or drink it. The value of money is that it holds an extra aspect to it that is super handy when exchanging goods and services. Still, money can become the thing itself, the reason for living, the essence of society.
- Stockbrokers peddle in money; banks are in the money business; entire nations rise early in the morning to ensure there is money in our pockets.
Additionally, currencies compete with one another for being the strongest currency in the world; investors flock to the economy with the strongest currency. As such, additional mechanisms are available in what was already an artificial reality, these mechanisms automatically not natural in essence either.
While nature can indeed be seen as competitive perhaps to a fault, the artificial reality holds up as mirror how humans are not controlling themselves and find competition even where there is no need to compete.
People can get pulled into the financial mechanisms of becoming richer and richer or contribute to the overall negative outcome simply through desiring to become richer and richer. A game is playing out, not because we need to feed our bellies, but because we ended up competing for no other reason than competition for the sake of competition. Our brains can stand in a spot that is not natural, thinking there is nothing wrong.
- We did not build-in a full stop in this game. Today, there is no stop in the artificial world that mankind created. We have fallen into the well and we are not climbing out of it.
Lands once covered in trees are chopped down to sell the timber while the land can be used now for other financially attractive crops. This is happening even when the virgin lands remaining are becoming more and more scarce. All this action is done in the name of making a decent buck, and more and more want to get in on the action.
Had there not been any money, mankind would have made different choices. Now, we collectively step out of the way just so the mechanisms of money can do their beneficial jobs. We worship the money system.
To say this in the bleakest manner possible:
- The machines are already controlling us.
We can fall into the hollow and not come out of it until we destroyed nature entirely.
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To bring this negative example back to a more neutral position, we are not robots ourselves. Competition for the sake of competition is perhaps not smart, yet art for art’s sake has given us many wonderful pieces of art, artificial as they are for sure.
We need not hold on to the negative example, but hopefully the deeper point became clearer this way. There is an area in our minds where we can stand, and yet that area is not there in reality. We can get swept up by artificial mechanisms that are fully entrenched in human society, but not anywhere else. It is good to understand this reality.
Additionally, each of us can make choices, and with our decisions we do influence our world. We can make the negatives less negative.
- Not buying products with palm oil, for instance, diminishes the demand for palm oil. Fewer tropical trees will get cut when the cookies you buy in the store are not made with palm oil.
It is true that orangutans are losing their habitat because leaders of industry want to optimize our food chain while making a buck or two. Individuals can either contribute our two cents or subtract our cents to this equation by (not) buying the palm oil cookies. We are not robots.
Of course, it is okay to feel lost in the forest, not seeing the trees anymore in this modern world. Yet the meaning of the word word shows us that we have a choice to see through our very own words.
The reason the brain can go -blank- and disconnect from the larger reality is because the brain is a tool. We can turn the tool off, and then make the decision to keep it in that off position, not making any additional steps to help out with the situation. Or… we can recognize that in the off position we are still part of this planet and have a responsibility to perform according to the planet’s needs.
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At the time the ancients started using language, they understood the natural world well. Their brains captured reality through using tools such as language. They recognized how words themselves are not real, but could become real, nevertheless, to us.
We are now many moons removed from the first artificial steps humans took. Our modern world is flooded with artificial outcomes, almost disconnecting us from reality almost.
What will next become of us, is up to us. There are ways we can control our own actions and influence the outcomes on our planet.
