It seems to me that my flowers need watering.
I don’t believe in God.
I feel strongly about the Red Sox.
I think language is powerful and should not be misused.
We have millions of different impressions over the course of a day, sights and sounds, briefly felt intents and emotions, more sustained streams of conscious that might include rote patterns of activities (bushing our teeth) or stock phrases that rush through our mind, and occasionally we receive striking new information or experiences that will be filed away for future recollection. These last moments are not common, and it seems to me that even less common than these are our new thoughts.
At the end of a day, as we sit back and reflect, a cool wind coming in through the window, on any of the phenomena we’ve experienced during the day, we may be able to recall these experiences vividly. But when so, it’s often difficult to express these phenomena verbally. We try to frame our meaning with tightly parcelled little jumbles of words, and yet with so many meanings so ineffable, and with most words so bulky and crude, it can be difficult to construct our exact recollection even when we’re sure what our meaning is.
This is why clarity of language seems to me to be paramount for the success of any attempt to be understood. If we truly think something to be so then we should not be afraid to state outright that we think it is so, but it is vital to have done some thinking- complete with having defined our terms, examined our premises and tested it briefly for holes before we do so. If all we really have, rather than a thought that something is so, but rather a recollection, an overheard statement, or an inchoate belief, we shouldn’t say that we think something is so. To back up our statement, we might honestly say that we think it might be so, and then give whatever backing we have.
Feelings are fine and valid and worth expressing- but rarely in the course of rational discourse. On the other hand most of life’s conversations aren’t rational discourse but social discourse. Thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are all welcome in this arena. If the world seems to you to be made of Green Cheese, say it loud and say it proud- but remember to refrain from mentioning this belief to people that are trying to have a rational discussion about this- unless you have some reasonably deep thoughts about this to back it up.
Life is deeper, more mysterious and more meaningful, than any of us will ever grasp, I believe, although it seems to me that physicists, lovers, poets and sots may have a better grasp on some aspects of the ineffable than the rest of us. By and large they’ve learned either to value precision in speech* or to largely forsake it altogether when engaged in their vocations.
We could learn much from them.
*precision, not concision
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