Wood, timber, firewood, two-by-fours? All these names imply different uses for that same piece of wood. Your choice of a name betrays your intent, and it also reflects the system of value judgments of your society.

Ultimately, how close our social value system comes to reflect the life value system of the underlying truth of existence is dependent upon how closely language reflects the same, for our language and the associated value system are “hardwired” into our brains, as explained before. If the language we use is off the mark, we have no choice but to be off the mark also, for using such misguided language will force us farther from an understanding of the truth by the acts of speaking, writing, and communicating. We will look at the world upside-down. We will consider that we are succeeding when in actuality we are failing; we will consider ourselves to be maturing when we are becoming more parasitic and dependent.

Some Things Cannot Be Expressed in Words

Although language has these inherent limitations, it has no problem when dealing with things in everyday life, such as drawing up contracts or writing a user’s manual for machinery. It will continue to be sufficient for such uses in the foreseeable future. We only come up against the limitations of language when we seek to express something that is beyond the realm of skills and / or technology.