I've invented a few words in my time.
Words for unseeable conceptual things I've noticed or sensations I've
felt that don't have names. Urnk, fweelt, huphtink, and schwelpt -
that's just four of them. There are lot more. I have them all listed
in a journal. Sometimes I forget to write down what they mean and
when I make that mistake it inevitably leads me to forget
the thing I invented the name for even exists in the first place.
I'll try and make myself clearer: Imagine you noticed the sensation
of feeling at ease. You noticed that everyone seems to undergo this
sensation at times. You start to recognise it in others, a gentle
smile and unguarded body posture. So, imagine you decide to name this
sensation of feeling at ease. For the sake of simplicity, let's
imagine you call this sensation 'comfort', a word that, along with
any possible synonyms for the same sensation, has heretofore not
existed. Now imagine you write the word down. Now imagine that you
return some time later to discover the word 'comfort' in the place
you wrote it but you have forgotten what it relates to, what it
means, and you have forgotten that 'comfort' ever existed. Can you
imagine something like that? Well, that kind of thing happens to me
all the time. Unseen things only exist when named. If you forget the
names of unseen things they vanish from your mind. I mean to say,
they are still there, it's just that you can no longer perceive them.
If we all forgot what the word 'comfort' meant
we would forget we even feel it or have a need to feel it. We would
live in near perpetual discomfort, only occasionally
experiencing the unrecognised sensation of 'comfort' quite by chance.
We wouldn't discuss it or anything. We'd probably never mention it.
You might doubt this. You might say that we would eventually put a name to a
sensation if it was something we felt. 'After all', you might say,
'we do have names for unseeable sensations and concepts'. You might apply this logic and say that it proves
my postulation invalid. However, if you were to do such a thing I
would be forced to point out that you seem decidedly underschwelpt.
This would make you confused. You would not know what I meant but
this would only be because you would not recognise the unseeable
truth I would have described. You'd have no idea what I am talking
about but believe me, your obvious lack of schwelptness would be
showing and you would be risking absolute huphtink.
So you see, a great many unseeable
things have yet to be named. A great many others have been named but
those names forgotten or what they mean has been forgotten. We should
really keep an archive so we don't become unaware of more of these
unseeable sensations and concepts. Some may be of great significance.
Some may define fundamental aspects of human experience. It would be
a tragedy to lose more of them. For example, can you remember what it
is to chizzet? No, I thought not. Sad really. I think it is high time we catalogued these words in journals - perhaps in alphabetical order with the meanings of the words written next to each entry. We could call these journals Lexiconicons or Wordadoriums. What do you think? Really? I think the idea is pretty fweelty myself.
I'll conclude by making a prediction.
Have you noticed how the word 'morality' is being used less and less
these days? It is, really. You tend to find other words in its place.
Words like 'practicality' or 'realpolitik'. Soon we'll stop
considering the concept of morality altogether and quit discussing it
or aspiring to it. We'll forget that morality ever existed but, you
know, maybe it never did. Maybe this is one case of a word that is
best left to oblivion. Maybe 'morality' is just used as an abstract
excuse for other things or maybe it's too vague and subjective and
impossible to objectively quantify. Maybe we never should have
believed in it in the first place. Maybe this word is a word for an
unseeable thing that actually doesn't exist. Yes, maybe we should
forget it. Maybe it's just a silly word. Maybe it's just a load of
urnk.
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