“All words are lies:” (possibly George I. Gurdjieff, depicted here)

Words, Words, Words. My head is filled with words; my mouth issues streams of words; my pencil scribbles across the page … toward what end? Or is it just a compulsion, nervous or otherwise…or no-wise, given that “nervous” is just another word used to approximate something innate and ineffable?

“To name something is to destroy it:” (unknown)

I wrote this to myself a few years ago:

Words are all I have.
Words are my sword and my shield.
Words, written and spoken, are the tools of my work.

Pity me, while you ponder what others have written on the subject:
—

CONFUCIUS SAID:

If words are not true, concepts are not right.
If concepts are not right, morality and the arts do not thrive.
If morality and the arts do not thrive, justice miscarries.
If justice miscarries, the nation does not know where to put its feet and hands.
Therefore, disorder in words must not be tolerated.
___

Joseph Conrad

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
—Joseph Conrad in Under Western Eyes

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
—Rudyard Kipling

Words are dwarfs, but examples are giants.
—Swiss-German Proverb

So, with all the above and more in mind, here I go with my writing career, starting with a rigorous online writing course. I do not, cannot any longer, allow myself to dream great dreams about what may come of the words I continue to spew. I feel that I must explain the world as I see it in the most concise way to those would listen with their eyes. It is just something I have to do.

I enjoy the play of words. It is as if the Great Everything were an infinitely-sided crystal that I am allowed to see and attempt to describe, one facet at a time.
—

California, Sierra Nevada, near Donner Pass, September 1998

I am a lucky man, I am
I sit in mountains watching sky
As Moon traverses showing path
For Sun to take in just an hour

The trees, my friends, stand ever straight
And radiate their calmness true
My soul’s enraptured with the touch
Of cool thin air embracing me

My breast does swell with nameless warmth
A joyful feeling calmly felt
How easily I might, I think
Become a tree and friend to all

There is no ending to this poem
Like Nature’s patterns through us all
And we are played as instruments
In this celestial symphony …