Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Anoesis: How New Words Open New Worlds

Yesterday morning I learned a new word. Such a delight (thanks to word of the day). There are words that I feel the lack of. One is a word for the deliberate act of ignoring. If I say ignorance, (IG-nor-ance) it means I don't know. But I want a word for ig-NOR-ance. Humans are very good at deliberately ignoring things, so why is there no word for it?

Yesterday's treasure was Anoesis: being flooded with emotion or sensation, and unable to form rational thought about it.  And the most peculiar thing happened. That afternoon I was plunged into anoesis.

I love to analyze, and having a label for that abstract, overwhelming, compelling state helped. Of course, I was trying to find a way to express this state of being so I could use it in a novel, but also to help me understand why I felt that way.

Like the apparent duality in physics, I live in a Newtonian world. My still-enduring moment of anoesis plunged me into a Quantum universe where all I know and think is altered, pulsing to different energies and perceptions. The quantum universe underlies all I think I know. I, too, am looking for a grand unification of what I am and what I seem to be.

Words are not dangerous things, but they do foment revolutions, personal or global.

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