The Human Condition and the Limitations of Language
By a Brother of Reseda Lodge (Name removed for anonymity)
Do you think you know who you are?
See, when we really think about it, it’s a rather strange question to answer. And if I’m being completely honest, the way I phrased it actually makes it a trick question. Now, before you throw the level at me, it’s not my intention to trick you, this is just my way of opening the topic I want to talk about tonight. And if you didn’t catch why it’s a trick question yet, just follow along and I’ll explain what I mean.
See, when we’re thinking, we’re using our intellectual mind—our rational mind—to analyze something. That voice in our head is using language to dissect the world around us and our place in it. That’s what I mean when I say thinking. I’m referring to that voice. That mental chatter that sometimes seems endless. It comes in the form of words, pictures, numbers, calculations and so on.
Now it’s interesting because while we’re doing that—while we’re thinking—we’re also aware of those thoughts we’re producing. Right? So, in one perspective, we could be said that we’re playing two roles. We could be playing the role of the thinker, the one producing the thoughts, and we could be playing the role of the observer, the one who’s hearing those thoughts.
So, we have the thinker and the observer.
Now if you THINK you know who you are, that means you’re able to put it into words, or pictures, and so if that’s the case, you’re obviously identifying with the thinker, because if you say you think you know who you are, that means you need those thoughts to recognize what you’d describe as you, or if I’m using the first-person pronoun, “I”. “I think I know who I am”.
Now then that leaves us with the other role, right? That leaves us with the observer.
See, if you’re that thing there that’s thinking, who’s the person who’s observing the thoughts? Who’s the one that hears that voice in your head?Is that you? The one who hears it? Well, let me ask you another question then. If you think you’re not the thinker, and you think you’re the observer, who’s the one who’s aware of you observing? Who’s the one aware of you listening? Because if you’re identifying with the observer, that other being is there too, right? You’re observing yourself listening to your own thoughts…
So, who’s that person? Who’s the one who’s aware of you observing yourself as you think those thoughts? And if you’re identifying yourself with that observer, is that not a thought in itself as well? It is, right?... You’re thinking you’re the observer who’s watching you think your thoughts. Are you beginning to recognize what I meant when I said it’s a trick question? The observer observing the observer, observing thoughts. It’s kind of like holding two mirrors in front of each other. It could go on endlessly.
Now the claim I’m about to make might cause some resistance to our rational mind, but when we sit with it long enough, the truth becomes evident.
See, if when one is identifying themselves with any of these roles, what they’re doing is they’re actually hiding from themselves. They’re covering their true self with a veil of thoughts. As Carl Jung, the brilliant psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology once said, “Intellectualism is a common cover-up for fear of direct experience.” And herein lies the human condition and the problem of the limitations of language.
To say this in a talk I’m delivering with my words is rather ironic, but words can sometimes be a real hinderance. Just by inspecting the nature of words and our use of them we can realize their clear limitations. Words are mere symbols, used to represent and communicate abstract ideas. We use these symbols in the same way our great ancestors did on the cave walls—to help others visualize particular things or events. They drew various things like horses, buffaloes, lions, wolves, and so on to let their fellow man know about certain threats and certain opportunities.
Now the words we use today are simply enhanced versions of these wall paintings. We’ve grown and evolved, and so have the things we’ve seen, created, and experienced. Thus, as our species has advanced, so did our symbols. And we see this progression today in common language.
For instance, when we create or discover something new to us, we need something to call it, so we assign it a symbol in the form a word. Then we use other words, or other symbols, to define our new word. So, it could be said that our words are made up of collections of other words; or, put differently, the only way to express a word’s meaning is to use other words.
These symbols of things representing other symbols of things, which we call “language”, gives us a rudimentary but nonetheless powerful form of communication. And that’s the extent that these words can take us, because all they are, are mere symbols.
But so often, we forget that. We get so caught up in our thoughts, so identified with those symbols, that we confuse them for reality. And we don’t necessarily do it consciously, because from our youth our common sense has been shaped this way.
It’s a dilemma that likely stems back from our species’ early development, from the time when we first discovered and used symbols like these on those cave walls. Throughout our species’ evolution we found symbols like these to be so unbelievably useful to our survival and advancement that we became completely immersed and fascinated with them. So much so, that we began to blur the lines between reality and our mental constructs.
To use an analogy, we began to confuse the paintings on the cave wall for truth, almost as if we’re ready to bite into the stone, thinking we’re biting into the meat of the buffalo to fulfill our hunger. Or, to use a more modern analogy, it’s like when we salivate reading a menu at a restaurant before the food is even out and placed in front of us. Or another is when confuse money for actual wealth. You see this with people who complain and get upset when it’s time to exchange their paper bills for groceries or rent for a home to live in.
When we take the time to think about this logically, we recognize how ridiculous it all sounds. We can’t bite into a stone wall or a menu to fulfill our hunger, we can’t eat dollar bills, nor can we safety live in a house made out of paper.
Yet, emotionally, subconsciously, many of us still operate with the idea that all these things are possible. This is again because our common sense is programmed to blur those lines between symbol and reality. No human being is an exception to this human condition. We all have a human brain, body, and mind that we interpret reality with.
It’s just sometimes we forget, or more accurately, overlook the fact that we’re undergoing the experience of being what we’ve labeled as being “human”. We’re born and everything in our culture and society and parents and all tell us who we think we are.
And so, we go on to develop this model of ourselves. I’m a man. I’m American. I’m Christian. I’m Muslim. I’m Jewish. I’m a son. I’m a brother. I’m a doctor. I’m a teacher. I’m a lawyer. And so on.
But again, these are just roles we’re playing. These are just bundles of thought patterns occupying our mind. Bundles of thought patterns that we’ve began to identify with. Symbols that we’ve adopted as reality.
And so now I want to circle back and by asking you my original question, but phrased a little differently. Phrased in a way that’s not meant to trick you this time. Phrased in a way that might encourage you to go beyond the rational mind to rediscover the answer…
Who is it that we are, when we’re not identifying with any of the roles we play?
Who is it that we are, when we get done being who we think we are?
Thank you.
The above was a talk given by the brother at Reseda's January 2024 Stated Meeting