Digital Underground - uXu - Underground eXperts United #uxu-566

### ### ### ### ### #### ### ### ### #### ### ### ##### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ##### ### ### ########## ### ### ########## ### ### ### ### Underground eXperts United Presents... ####### ## ## ####### # # ####### ####### ####### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## #### ## ## #### # # ####### ####### ####### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ####### ####### # # ####### ####### ####### [ The Day All Words Lost Their Meaning ] [ By The GNN ] ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ THE DAY ALL WORDS LOST THEIR MEANING by THE GNN/DC/uXu Some years ago, at a conference in Amsterdam, a woman from Germany asked me what I would do if "the words lost their meaning". I sincerely replied that I had no answer, as the question was too hypothetical for me to relate to. I added that I hoped that such a day would never come, because that would not merely be the end of my creative capabilities, but also to my life as I knew it. I declared that I could not live without being able to write. If I ever lost that ability, I would presumably fade away in an asylum rather quickly. Believe it or not, but I did not intend to be melodramatic in any way. At the time, I had written hundreds of short stories in all kinds of styles and genres, some screenplays, dozens of articles, a little poetry, half a doctoral dissertation; and I was on my way to embark on what I considered to be my first major project as a writer - a 'real' long novel (it was completed the year after the conference and shortly thereafter accepted for publication). My urge to write was seemingly endless; my head was spinning with ideas day and night, I loved my keyboard and word processor, I was addicted to the feeling that a great American writer described as "being just a head with a pencil in the mouth". When I was not actually writing, my mind was exploring new territories regarding concepts, plots and characters. I saw pictures in my mind, I heard monologues and dialogues. Everything inspired me. I loved the art of text. I could not conceive words without meaning, because my life was to a large extent framed in their meaning. But I was wrong. One day all words lost their meaning. Not a single word formed in my head. The voice of creativity that had constantly spoken to me was silent. When I tried to force myself to write something, anything, nothing good came out. And I discovered that everything I had written was trifling and hollow. Evening after evening, night after night, I tried to find something valuable in all the words I had accumulated during the years. But it was hopeless. When I sat on the kitchen floor with all the magazines I had written for scattered around me, looking at my essays and papers and notes and speeches and stories, I just could not find anything good. I saw lots of words indeed, but never did they form any content, any meaning. It was just an endless array of insignificant babbling, boring concepts and lousy plots. My novel sucked, it ought never to have been published at all. My new manuscripts collected dust in a corner. I considered burning them. I wondered how I had been able to carry on for such a long time without ever noticing. Nine years. All these days, all these words, all these thousand of pages - just a waste of space and time. I had not been a writer, merely a typing mechanic. Why had not anyone told me? I was more angry than ever before. I turned into a cynic. I disliked all kinds of stuff. But what I disliked most was paradoxically that I liked it. I took comfort in burning up from the inside. I wanted to punch my fist to the wall until all fingers broke. To smash things was great, to really hate people without a cause was a relief. My mind was a black hole, a void, and I did everything I could to fill it. But what could I fill it with but rage? Nothing was good enough. Nothing took me to the ultimate limit, the end of the universe where there was nothing to be found but an unconditional passion of creativity and fantasy. I saw no pictures in my head, I had no stories. Nothing inspired me anymore. Being angry was the only thing I had left. More pain was the best remedy against pain. I was an enraged head without a pencil in the mouth. I hated it. I wanted to have something to say. I wanted to write interesting texts, good texts, texts that inspired other people, texts that learned someone something (including myself), anything at all. But I had nothing to say. My life as I knew it was over. At the conference in Amsterdam, I could not even imagine such a life. But now I had no choice. I really should have tried to answer the woman's question, not just shrug, because then I might have learned something. I had taken too much for granted, and must learn how to start all over again. I tried explain to myself that my 'insights' were not absolute facts, but rather irrational effects that stemmed from a terrible shock. My inability to write was more of an unwillingness, I told myself. I was not a lousy writer, I had just been painfully reminded of my limits both as a writer and human being. I realized that I could not collect my feelings on paper when I really needed to. A good writer can express himself. I thought of myself as a good writer, someone who can put down just about anything on paper. I wanted to tell the whole narrative about the four days in May this year that changed my life entirely. That was to be the peak performance of my writing skill. I was to express how I really felt. But I could not. Not a single word formed in my head. I craved to tell about the unexpected phone call early in the morning, about the long sterile corridors and white coats at the hospital, about the blinking and beeping respirator, about the sunny morning when all lines on the monitors went flat, and it was all over. I wanted to tell how I slowly walked out of the hospital with a lock of hair in my hand, how I went to my parent's house and put it in a music box from Japan, right beside the lock of blonde hair that my father cut from my head when I was just a couple of weeks old, twenty-six years ago. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- uXu #566 Underground eXperts United 2000 uXu #566 Call THE YOUNG GODS -> +351-1XX-XXXXX ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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