The other day, I was watching the news and I realised that people who have "words to live by" often start to attack and even kill others. I thought about how angry I used to be and how easy it was for me to use words to defend violent thoughts that could have led to violent actions. Even though words are tools, they seem to be more dangerous than gunpowder.
Picture two men standing face to face and pointing past each other. One is pointing at an approaching tornado, and the other is pointing at a raging fire that is coming their way. Each person sees their own truth, and when they see the other person's hand, they get angry. Each person thinks that the other person's hand is "wrong." This may seem silly, but if you change the tornado and fire to any modern problems and the hands to words, it shows how we often try to talk to each other.
We say things that don't make sense to each other and argue as if we were looking at the same facts and experiences. We want to show that our words are right instead of learning to see what the other person is trying to say. Even though words can be very helpful, they can also keep us from understanding something if we focus on them and make them more important than the truth they're meant to point out.
There are no words by which to live.
This isn't just about talking to other people. We focus on the words we use to explain the world to ourselves, and we get caught in that web. For example, we call things "right" or "wrong" based on how they match up with our "definitions." Math formulas and definitions, on the other hand, can never be so precise. They can't tell the whole truth about everything. For example, it doesn't take much to make a situation in which "stealing" is right and "helping" someone is wrong.
This is not a reason not to use words or logic. It's just that neither can go on forever. Like a car that takes you across the country or the world, they are useful, but like a car, they are only useful in certain ways, and you have to get out of them when you get to your different destinations. Getting a car to the lake is no problem, but getting it into the lake is. We do this when our words and thoughts lead us into dangerous situations.
But can it be dangerous to have words to live by? Absolutely. I once heard a kind person say that he didn't agree with laws against animal cruelty because he couldn't think of a good way to defend them. If he saw a new machine, would he refuse to believe it existed until he could explain and describe it? Reality and right and wrong exist outside of words; they are not the words themselves.
On the evening news, I saw a man say that we have the right and should drop a nuclear bomb on Iraq. As he explained why, you could see that his words, logic, and where they lead him were more important to him than any feelings of kindness he might have had. He never thought that there might be truth outside of what he said and thought.
Having rules like "don't lie" or "we have the right to defend ourselves" is great. Even better is to keep in mind that these rules will fail us someday, and we will have to make new ones. Words are only instruments. There are words by which to die, but none by which to live.
