White Pigeon vs Mother Figure

My mum always tells me: You spend too much time and effort on talking to men, it will lead you nowhere, because talking is useless in the face of reality.

What my mum means is that: You should do more and talk less. The only way to get to know another person is through action.

Already a whole lot of myths and tradition-based concepts. How about to question these ultimate wisdom wells and, instead of blindly believe it, turn to Wittgenstein.

It is not possible for two people to hold and exchange fully the same meaning of one concept. If people agree upon a concept (admitting it’s “true”), it is because they’re lazy to inquire further (because inquiry never stops), is to say in Rorty’s style.

This is when Language Game theory comes to explanation. I don’t even mention this famous duck/rabbit picture of Wittgenstein. But think about all the abstract concepts that we hold, convinced that we are able to successfully share it with someone else. Concept of Love, Family, Wisdom, not to mention Happiness or Fulfillment.

That’s why love, at its start, tends to be so magical, so beautiful — because we, deceived with our biology, our hormones and urges, come to believe another person got — if not the whole picture — at least the large part of what we really mean.

But then comes reality and we suddenly realize all the misconceptions we’ve been building our life together upon. And then we strive to understand each other, make sense of what his words mean, what his behaviour is all about, his reactions and responses.

And we feel lost. And lonely. And betrayed by our sweet dream, made of even sweetest illusion of being able to live in symbiosis.

My mum always says: You talk too much to these poor men, you should be and do, rather than discuss and converse. Fuck that mum, you know. I want to understand people. Be able to glimpse some tiny common threads of comprehension.

I want to be able to see that fucking white pigeon the same way my boyfriend does. I guess there is nothing more important than looking at the world the same way. Some people (my mum for sure) call it “having the same set of values”.

Figure out some logical and simple ways of communicating needs and desires, and whatever else there is to life together. Referring to Nietzsche, our life gets meaning only with a rational dose of protective deception.

Wittgenstein didn’t create a perfect language system that would explain everything, I don’t think two random people in love can. The only thing we can do is to agree upon some simplifications (“protective deception”) and then, making up our own unique concepts — act accordingly.

Sounds good right? Yeah mum, but for that we need to sit and talk. In fact we could walk and talk. Just to kill mum’s darn voice in my head.