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The Museum of Vestigial Desire

Grammar

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Constructions follow a format
But the formats are loose,
They do not manage to contain,
What stays is a fraction of what goes away.

The ability, or the agility
Of the net to knit itself
To trap all the fish,
Does not exist.

Just like water, small fish and weed,
Escaping the net is also a part of the design.
To keep something,
You have to let something go.

That is how filtration works.

The capacity of language to assemble
via the construct of grammar is well known.
But some texts fall apart
Under the burden of the agenda.

And also the dryness of the surface.

A smooth reading surface has to hold
And just-as-easily let go.

Else the friction increases to a point
Where motion is brought to a stand-still.
And the tempo of movement is all that a text
Needs to retain.

We can hit a brick wall
But we cannot crash.
The potential that we carry these seeds
In the cup of our hands is too enormous.

That is the thing about time,
It appears to kill us slowly
But unless our moment-to-moment death
Is countered by an explosion of birth-events

We do not really stand a chance.

The grammar of language needs to be defeated. The grammar comes in the way of our play with language. Play is necessary for the roughness of our potential message to get across.

Unless play is possible in a given situation, only permutations of the formatted constructions will be revealed. Improvisation will be predictable.

Constraints are a good replacement for a grammar. A constraint implies that only that option which has a existing resource base will be plausible. Constraints are often misunderstood to be the parameters of the environment and not the current scenario. Constraints are accepted because they are they are perceived to be absolute.

What most of us learnt the hard way is that constraints are actually not absolute at all. Most people can overcome them just by trying hard enough. If constraints are not absolute and are just barriers for sufficient effort, then they cannot be elements of the grammar of our language. They are just not useful enough as concepts and we have to keep looking out. Constantly being in a search is tiring and needs a consistent motivation. It is easier to accept limitations, stop seeking and be inhibited.

But we are not seeking the easier path. We never were. We have been searching for a long time for what can be called the optimal adjustment. A zone of comparatively tolerable trauma and reasonable possibilities.

Living within the bounds of the constructs of language, but knowing very well that the constructs of language cannot hold everything...

Communication between beings happens not because of language but in spite of language. Words hide and do not reveal. This is a fact that can change the dynamics of communication. Words are links, they are not containers.

The friction of reading can replace the constructs of meaning and message but not completely. We have to tune ourselves to the patterns of friction and use these patterns in a similar way to how we use language. At some resolution, the subtle variations in the patterns of the friction created by reading can put together an entire semiotic system.

When we cannot understand, we imagine. The less we understand, the more we imagine. We are moving away from the walled garden of relying on constructed communication to get our point across.

We are moving away from relying on translation. Translation is a distraction and an postponement. It encourages us to be limited to the devices of our fluency with language.

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