Does any of that arise in your mind? It does in mine, sort of. How many fate-muffins are there? Just how “small” are they, and where have you located them? Near those freedom-dimples? Are the sloppy salmons slimy? What does it mean that all of this nonsensical silliness now, sort of, is?

It means that language can make worlds that don’t and could never exist. This is what our mind is doing all the time: making, with words, a world that doesn’t, quite, exist.

Language is a meaning approximator that sometimes gets too big for its britches and deceives us, intentionally (someone with an agenda twists language to urge us into action) or unintentionally (with an idea in mind, we build an earnest case, seeking the language to make our idea seem true, unaware that, too fond of our idea, we’re stretching the thin fabric of language over untrue places in our argument).

Language, like algebra, operates usefully only within certain limits. It’s a tool for making representations of the world, which, unfortunately, we then go on to mistake for the world itself.

The fun here is spending a few moments in the land where language goes to admit what it really is: a system of communication with limitations, suitable for use in everyday life but wonky in its higher registers.

Like someone who watches a friend freak out during an emergency, we may never look at our old pal language the same way again.

Which is a good thing. We wouldn’t want to mistake a truth-approximating tool for the truth itself.

George Saunders, Swim In Pond In Rain

Chimpsky: Colorless green practice creeps furiously.

P Willy: What’s that, you say? Oh indeed, very much so!

Coverless lean cactus sleeps curiously.

I think, therefore I am wrong, after which I speak, and my wrongness falls on someone also thinking wrongly, and then there are two of us thinking wrongly, and, being human, we can’t bear to think without taking action, which, having been taken, makes things worse.

We each have an energetic and unique loop running in our heads, one we believe in fully, not as “merely my opinion” but “the way things actually are, for sure.”

The entire drama of life on earth is: Person #1 steps outside, where he encounters Person #2. Both, seeing themselves as the center of the universe, thinking highly of themselves, immediately slightly misunderstand everything. They try to communicate but aren’t any good at it.

Hilarity ensues.

George Saunders, Swim In Pond In Rain