When Words Fail

(including these very words right here)

Two of the load-bearing pillars of my ethos appear to directly conflict, I realized recently. They’re not actually contradictory, but the apparent friction reveals something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.

One of the pillars is this:

Words are invaluable. They are a linchpin of what makes us human. Communicating with words is a big part of what connects us with each other. The ability to express our thoughts and feelings to each other (and to ourselves) using the human construct of language is imperative for creating meaning and feeling connected. The inability or refusal to use words can damage or even destroy relationships. Words are often the glue that holds us together.

But the other pillar is this:

Words can be worthless. There are feelings and experiences, be they euphoric or confusing or devastating, that transcend the boundaries of language. Emotions that we can’t begin to put into words. Things that we can’t begin to explain, to ourselves or to each other. Words are inadequate, in the end, to do justice to our emotional spectrum or to the full gamut of the human experience.

When words fail, it is imperative that we have an alternate mode of expression. Some other method of tapping into our feelings and finding solidarity with our fellow humans.

For me, that alternate mode of expression… is music.

Specifically, music without vocals. Songs with no lyrics. I listen to instrumental rock, neoclassical music, and ambient music on my earbuds no less than 8-10 hours a day, and it props up my emotional well-being. It recontextualizes everything around me.

Pure music. No words. No didactic messages. No storytelling. Half the music I listen to is written by people from other parts of the world whose language I don’t understand. People I couldn’t have a conversation with if I met them.

But that doesn’t matter because music is our shared language. I understand what they’re trying to say, or at least I can feel what they’re feeling, because a song speaks its own truth without needing to speak a word.

Music can be so lucid that it renders language optional.

And when words have failed me, music never does.

My most valuable personal possession

I am a word guy in every sense of the, well, word. I process my thoughts and feelings and observations of the world through writing, and through conversation. When I don’t write on a regular basis, I wither. When I don’t find people I can talk to, I fade. I was a bookworm who became an English major, and now I am a blogger. I have always been a chatty extrovert. Words are the primary tool I wield in trying to understand myself, others, and the world.

But lately, words have been failing me more often. This is because of the ebb and flow of my mental health, which can make clarity elusive and thus curtail my ability (or my desire) to write. But it’s also because recent events in the world have so often rendered me speechless.

For both of these reasons, I actively curate my own personal soundtrack. I let it flow into my eardrums for a majority of my waking hours.

I need music to feel sane, to feel connected to my emotions, and to feel like the world is still beautiful and full of meaning. I need it to keep my soul awake.

When the world makes no sense, music always does.

Music has its own internal logic, and it also transcends logic.

It is our universal language, uniting people from every corner of the globe.

Or as Victor Hugo said, much better than I ever could:

"Music expresses that which cannot be said, and on which it is impossible to be silent."