Book,

 

In this writing, I explain, why, for such a long time, I was against writing about Embodied Language (EL) and would never produce a scientific article or book about it. As anyone who reads my blog knows, I am not against writing about EL, but I was so strongly against it, as I found – and still find – that talking about EL, is more important, than reading about it.

 

You can never read yourself into this new way of talking and dealing with language, which I call EL. I am absolutely convinced, we are fooling ourselves into believing, that our written language can change our spoken language and the fact that Disembodied Language (DL) dominates every society, around the world, proves my point. Our over-appreciation and our over-estimation of the importance of written or printed language, inevitably, signifies our neglect, ignorance, under-appreciation and under-estimation of our spoken language. Consequently, language has become disembodied, because nobody cares about the sound of their own voice enough, to be able to embody their language again. I blame books, not just any particular book, but all books and I propose a public book-burning, to bring your attention to EL.

 

Of course, I am aware the Nazies burned books, but they certainly weren’t the first to do this. Whenever people have fought wars, they have always burned all the books, in a stupid attempt, to eradicate the acquired knowledge. Mankind has gone through many dark ages, because knowledge was destroyed.

 

I only want to burn old, meaningless books, which nobody wants to read. When I studied psychology, I bought and read tons of books and when I stopped teaching psychology, some time ago, I felt, I wanted to get rid of these books, which were just in boxes in my garage. We’ve had various garage sales and each time, I spread out all the great books, I had read and felt inspired by, on my driveway. However, nobody wanted to buy any of my dear books. We sold clothes, furniture, an old tea-pot and some CDs, but none of my precious books were sold. I couldn’t even sell one for one dollar. Occasionally, someone picked up a book and glanced through it. I felt like talking about that book, as I knew exactly what was in it, but they weren’t particularly interested in talking with me either and quickly put the book down again. It was a sobering experience, a real contrast with the pretentious hype, stress and torture of my costly graduate study. I guess, I could have, but I didn’t burn any of these expensive books and I just dumped all of them in the garbage can.

 

Books haven’t delivered and we’ve been shooting ourselves in the foot, by imagining and fantasizing, that writing another bestseller book, would make a real difference. The only real difference is that some authors, like some speakers, receive more attention than others and, become famous. The competition for attention, in written publications, is as severe, as the struggle for attention, which is the unintelligent, underlying, brutal principle of all human interaction.

 

I have never read the same book twice, because I never felt the urge to read it again. Actually, as a child, I never liked reading books and only in my adult life – at age forty-two, after I had immigrated to the United States – as a student of psychology, science, behavior, philosophy and language, did I become an avid reader. Also, I never wanted to have the same conversation, as it bored me. Although I haven’t always known this as clearly, as I do today, people read the same book over and over again, in the idle hope, to have some stability, knowledge or control over their language. By citing, quoting and repeating texts, they create the illusion from which they believe to derive peace and clarity and waste  their entire lives on this enterprise. I was raised in a Catholic family, but from a young age I felt deeply troubled, as I didn’t and couldn’t believe anything about what was written in the Bible. I now know that DL is the language of repetition. It creates its own sort of order, in which everyone, supposedly, has and, presumably, knows, their place in the hierarchy of society. I used to call EL, the Language Which Creates Space, as it creates a different order, which isn’t hierarchical and it never repeats itself.      

 

Every time people push some political, religious, but also psychological, philosophical or, presumably, scientific narrative, they ban – and might as well burn – books, they violently censure publications and they basically kill any feed-back or criticism, by de-platforming each other from social media. Make no mistake, DL is war. Surely, violent protests – in which people with any particular view, opinion or belief, are threatened and intimidated by screaming, rioting aggressors – are part of the normalization of violence, which is and was always condoned by DL.

 

If we are going to have EL, our written language will change. Right now, everything, yes, everything, yes, everything (3x), that was written, derives from DL and this writing, only this writing, only this writing (3x), is the first writing, which emphatically, clearly, unmistakably derives from EL. Stated differently, whatever people have written, has always followed the way in which people have interacted with each other and have related to each other. Although, you probably find it hard to believe –  and I’m not asking you to – that we’ve never deliberately had EL, this is why the world is full of chaos and conflict. Our way of dealing with language hasn’t changed and as a consequence, cultures come and go, as there never was a lasting peaceful way of using our language.  

 

As far as I am concerned, there will never be a book about EL. This writing on this blog is the only written version you will ever read. I didn’t write this for you, but for myself. No, this is not my journal, this is my way of owning and protecting my language. You may read it, but you need to write your own words, in the same way, that you need to speak your own words. Nobody can be the voice for someone else and this whole issue of so-called representation is based on DL. I don’t represent anyone, that is why my EL can flow, that is why I delight in my Language Enlightenment (LE). I am not someone screaming in the desert either, as I can hear myself and don’t need your attention or approval, to know that EL is our only future, because your DL is on its deathbed.