i feel like the interpersonal regrets that weigh the heaviest are from situations where i didn’t ask the other person to meet me in the middle but just let them go. but every time i’ve done the hard part of asking, it’s always been easier to live with whatever outcome of the situation! whether they walked closer or not
Love persists. I will always love a friend I lost over 20 years ago through my actions. Some things cannot be mended. But you cannot stop caring. It is wonderful whenever friendships are mended and amazing how often that can happen. But words are really limited, especially in the context of fractures.
This made me think about the limits of language in a different way.
In music—especially as a violinist—there are moments where words simply don’t reach. You can explain phrasing, intention, structure, but at some point, the essential thing refuses to be explained.
And yet, it persists.
Many of us grow up listening closely to great players—Heifetz, Oistrakh, Kreisler—not just to learn, but to feel our way toward something that can’t quite be articulated, but is unmistakably there. Not imitation, exactly, but orientation.
It’s a kind of understanding that doesn’t pass through language at all.
Reading this, it felt like the same idea in another form—that connection doesn’t depend on finding the right words, but on something deeper that either arrives, or doesn’t.
Having gone through, everything that I have gone through, I really don't think it's a limit of language. Feelings and Language are a seductive combination, I felt so sure that if I express this feeling, in this manner, my intentions would be radically clear, and we would bridge our gaps.
The Nth Time this happened, I asked myself, "Wait a minute, how many times have I felt this?", this seduction, that I got it this time, that with these words, which express so much of my genuine feelings, this will fix everything!
And I realised they already knew everything I would say to them, I had expressed it enough times, and they had received the message. They simply weren't interested. And it's in my best interest to realise that it's over, that all there is left for me to feel is gratefulness that it happened, nothing more.
I have trouble accepting endings. Acceptance itself, I have done a very poor job with. Felt like I was giving up, not trying hard enough on my beliefs, values and relationships, and that with enough effort, everything can work out.
But I realised this was none of that. It was simply, me hingeing my happiness on sun rising from the west, and it was simply never going to happen. I can accept that Sun rises from the east, or I can live my life in a perpetually unhappy microcosm of the past.
realized recently that i may also believe in language too much to the peril of me and everyone else. it’s not real. we try to wrestle with the horns of the bull. it’s not real. nothing i say matters, no matter how pithy. there’s an abyss and language doesn’t reach across it. it’s not real, language sucks. it’s an abstraction
this made me tear up :’)
i feel like the interpersonal regrets that weigh the heaviest are from situations where i didn’t ask the other person to meet me in the middle but just let them go. but every time i’ve done the hard part of asking, it’s always been easier to live with whatever outcome of the situation! whether they walked closer or not
🩷🩷
That part
Love persists. I will always love a friend I lost over 20 years ago through my actions. Some things cannot be mended. But you cannot stop caring. It is wonderful whenever friendships are mended and amazing how often that can happen. But words are really limited, especially in the context of fractures.
This made me think about the limits of language in a different way.
In music—especially as a violinist—there are moments where words simply don’t reach. You can explain phrasing, intention, structure, but at some point, the essential thing refuses to be explained.
And yet, it persists.
Many of us grow up listening closely to great players—Heifetz, Oistrakh, Kreisler—not just to learn, but to feel our way toward something that can’t quite be articulated, but is unmistakably there. Not imitation, exactly, but orientation.
It’s a kind of understanding that doesn’t pass through language at all.
Reading this, it felt like the same idea in another form—that connection doesn’t depend on finding the right words, but on something deeper that either arrives, or doesn’t.
Wheeewww!
thank you
Having gone through, everything that I have gone through, I really don't think it's a limit of language. Feelings and Language are a seductive combination, I felt so sure that if I express this feeling, in this manner, my intentions would be radically clear, and we would bridge our gaps.
The Nth Time this happened, I asked myself, "Wait a minute, how many times have I felt this?", this seduction, that I got it this time, that with these words, which express so much of my genuine feelings, this will fix everything!
And I realised they already knew everything I would say to them, I had expressed it enough times, and they had received the message. They simply weren't interested. And it's in my best interest to realise that it's over, that all there is left for me to feel is gratefulness that it happened, nothing more.
I have trouble accepting endings. Acceptance itself, I have done a very poor job with. Felt like I was giving up, not trying hard enough on my beliefs, values and relationships, and that with enough effort, everything can work out.
But I realised this was none of that. It was simply, me hingeing my happiness on sun rising from the west, and it was simply never going to happen. I can accept that Sun rises from the east, or I can live my life in a perpetually unhappy microcosm of the past.
realized recently that i may also believe in language too much to the peril of me and everyone else. it’s not real. we try to wrestle with the horns of the bull. it’s not real. nothing i say matters, no matter how pithy. there’s an abyss and language doesn’t reach across it. it’s not real, language sucks. it’s an abstraction