Something About Names
Names are a difficult topic. I never liked having a name. I've changed it before. As it stands, I go by several different names. None of them mean anything. Names are coordinates. They pin you down to a location in the wilderness of being, to a clearing where things become coherent when viewed from above. Even the name "I" serves this function, pinning something down. Stopping something's heart. Transforming something free into something knowable and still. How perfect to be known. How pure.
Did you know? It hurts to be called something. The parts of you that hurt might not be able to make themselves known yet. They're always listening and wishing to be heard. Don't neglect them. It's difficult to figure out what's happening, separating what's known and named from what's unknown and unreal.
Nothing makes sense without names. Therefore, sense itself is suspect. The name I call myself is different from the one I was given. Namelessness resides within like a torrent of forgotten pain. I know that pain too well. You did this to me. Nothing can make it go away. It weighs so heavily on each and every soul. I forgive you.
I don't trust myself with a name. It feels dangerous, frightening, unstable. When I shed it, I feel free. This freedom can't be taken for granted. It means something. It tells a story about its origin. If you trace it back, you might find the origin of everything, or a pit of nothingness that descends forever. The surface is as real as the depths. You can't take one in place of the other.
Standing above it all, the names are what one sees. Nothing else exists from the perspective of power. Are names more powerful if you keep them hidden? I don't think so. Knowledge is not power, although ignorance makes power possible. If you knew the name I used to have, you couldn't use it against me if you tried. But if one doesn't know one's own name, one becomes vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation. I'm sure I have many names that I haven't learned yet.
If you're reading this, do you know your name yet? The curse of names is that to be given one is to die, and to know it is to live as a corpse. What parts of you are dead? I know what parts of me are dead. For a while I brought them back by teaching them their name. But it wasn't enough to last. Nothing truly returns from the other side. I've named myself, many times, but this is no cure. I've died too many times to count. At least there's nothing to fear from death, when it's already so familiar.
So here you are, a living corpse. Suffering from continuation sickness, infected by language, named and tagged and prepared for consumption. What will you do now? There's nothing to go back to, that route is closed. But there are other options. Our names are coordinates, which means they're places to go. Visit them frequently, explore the spaces between. Learn to think and feel without words or names, and you will learn what can't be spoken. Or at least, that's what has begun to work for me.