A Moment of Bedazzlement

[rushthatspeaks]

I am having one of those moments where one is going along, the way one does, and then suddenly one is just sheerly overwhelmed by the basic circumstances of one's life. Wait-- I'm how old, again? I have how many tattoos? I've been married how long, again? That is so cool! I swear ten minutes ago I was seven! That kind of moment. Only I'm having a manifestation of it that I don't usually have.

Isn't it so neat that everyone has a name? Just the concept of naming, itself, that you take a word, which may or may not mean something else, and you apply it to somebody, and then to some extent it means them, as well as meaning all the other people who have ever had it, and it gathers layers of resonance as history moves onward, both in general and in specific, so that the first time you meet somebody you may have real difficulty remembering their name but after you've known them for fifteen years you have difficulty thinking of that name as belonging to anyone else.

And that this, arbitrary and awkward as it may sometimes be, is so useful, and works so well so much of the time, that it is genuinely universal and people will name anything they can get their hands on.

Isn't that impressive? It's no wonder it's generally considered one of the great human achievements; it even beats traffic (and if you don't think that the evolution of traffic laws is one of the great human achievements, try to consider how you would get anything from place to place without it: totally unregulated transportation systems in which all are against all do not survive).

So yeah. Names. I've got one, which is really nifty.

Also I'm twenty-five, and I've been married three-ish years depending how you count it, and I've got three tattoos, and all of this still surprises me, because honestly, who'd'a thought it?

Comments

[angelasea.livejournal.com]

Hi! I recently found and friended you.

I am having one of those moments where one is going along, the way one does, and then suddenly one is just sheerly overwhelmed by the basic circumstances of one's life.

Yes! With me it often happens when I'm looking in the mirror, and it has to do with selfhood and self-consciousness and body awareness. Hm, there's someone behind those eyes. There's a me behind those eyes. I am behind those eyes. Hm, I'm an I, and I have this external, extended presence as well as this internal, nonextended sense of self. And somehow the two coincide, and isn't that amazing? I mean, all philosophical cerebrations aside, the pure physical and mental sense of self, the fact of flesh, the visceral experience of it, really is absolutely amazing.

And yes, often when I'm driving I sit there and it strikes me as so amazing that traffic has evolved to be this (more or less) well-oiled machine. It is so creative and thoughtful, and accidents and annoyances notwithstanding, on the whole it works so well! I'm constantly amazed at what we've achieved as a species, in terms of traffic, in terms of everything. When I'm in a window seat on a plane and I'm looking down, I'm amazed first of all that I'm in a flying machine and also, looking down at the sprawl of civilization, that we have achieved so much, and from such humble beginnings.

Which is all to say that, yes, I know what you mean! :)

[redbird]

Names are cool, and complex, and carry all sorts of things with them. Not just the other people who've been named that, but sounds and assumptions about gender and nationality. I overheard an odd argument the other day, in which someone was insisting that the bank whose lobby we were in couldn't just be named HSBC, it had to have a "real" name rather than initials, because it had to mean something. I refrained from asking him "Excuse me, sir, what does your name mean?" but I was tempted.

[ckd]

At least most companies that only have initials once had longer names that generated the initials. It's the bizarro marketing-consultant-generated names that get me. "Verizon"?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It doesn't invalidate your argument, I think, that HSBC stands for Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Corporation, or some such.

[redbird]

Oh, I know. In fact, the guard told the person that it used to stand for that, but now was just the initials; apparently in his world that's not acceptable.

[ssuzzi-q.livejournal.com]

I dont' think names are arbitrary. I have a name God/goddess/whatever is out there gave me. The first time around I was called Sarah. The second time around I was called Susan. My name is Seraia. A man's name yes, but with significant meaning to me. Amazing my parents both times picked names really close to what I was actually to be called. I don't think Names are man's invention at all. I think the universe created it, and speaks through everything we name to give us the proper name. My son is Caine. I picked good. My daughter is Brianna. I picked Hailey. I was really off on that one. I think the names speak to our spirit. Your real name has great meaning. But since everything in the universe collects back into the spirit/god/goddess/whatever is out there, there is no way of naming the collective.

My theory is that "we were made in His image" not of body, but of soul. "He takes a drop from the universal sea of conciousness", the universal sea is himself. He/she used him/herself to create us. Litereallly everying in the universe man made and otherwise is God.

So now we bring it home. Put the two ideas together and 1)That is why God or whatever has so many names because he has all of our names and names for things, and basically can't be named. 2)We really don't name eachother or things. We attemp to hear what is told to us the name should be.

There's my deep thought for the day.

I plan on calling you sometime this week. Let me know if there is a peticular good time for that.

Love ya

[sovay]

I love how names work.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

there's a book that i read when i was younger that had someone in it whose job it was to name things. i am recalling that it's one of l'engle's books, but i am not positive. (i am hoping that you are the sort of person who this will sound familiar to.)