train cast off words, learn erase word-thoughts, begin feel a new worl — Steven Millhauser, Dangerous Laughter

Norway Timelapse
PlayPlay

previous arrow
next arrow
Norway Timelapse
Budapest Timelapse
Iceland Timelapse
Berlin Timelapse
London Timelapse
previous arrow
next arrow

As I train myself to cast off words, as I learn to erase word-thoughts, I begin to feel a new world rising up around me, The old world of houses, rooms, trees and streets shimmers, wavers and tears away, revealing another universe as startling as fire. We are shut off from the fullness of things. Words hide the world. They blur together elements that exist apart, or they break elements into pieces bind up the world, contract it into hard little pellets of perception. But the unbound world, the world behind the world – how fluid it is, how lovely and dangerous. At rare moments of clarity, I succeed in breaking through. Then I see. I see a place where nothing is known, because nothing is shaped in advance by words. There, nothing is hidden from me. There, every object presents itself entirely, with all its being. It's as if, looking at a house, you were able to see all four sides and both roof slopes. But then, there's no “house,” no “object,” no form that stops at a boundary, only a stream of manifold, precise, and nameless sensations, shifting into one another, pullulating, a fullness, a flow. Stripped of words, untamed, the universe pours in on me from every direction. I become what I see. I am earth, I am air. I am all. My eyes are suns. My hair streams among the galaxies.

Steven Millhauser, Dangerous Laughter

Related Authors: Steven Millhauser | Dangerous Laughter

Related Topics: language, words, writing

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *