I've never seen the dead.
I've never heard the cry,
I've never heard the dead.
I've never touched the gun,
I've never touched the dead.
What am I to say (to say?) now? Am I to say anything?
"I am at a loss." --that is just a set of words.
"This is utterly senseless" --that is just another.
What can they mean? Can they mean anything, now? What do they do?
"My prayer for..." --but I cannot pray, for I don't believe in God to pray to.
"The victims are in my thoughts" --thoughts? What is that supposed to mean?
"I am sad for..." --what is sadness? My sadness? For someone? And what does it do for anything? How can I say that I am sad? Is sadness a saying?
"I offer my condolence..." --"condolence?" What does that mean? "An expression of sympathy." An expression? Sympathy? How can I offer an expression of sympathy in words?
Words can only mean what they mean. And the appalling gap between these symbols and incoherence of my mind cripples me from saying anything (albeit the letters get tyoed). What is said is said, for ever. Yet what is said, as soon as it's said, loses its heart, and becomes alien.
Such is the fate of words. The fate of man -- I hear an admonition from inside me -- One must still say it.
And yet, and yet.
Below I translate and quote some parts of Yuji Takahashi's fragmentary essay "On the groundlessness of the world," written in 2001.
we discuss as if there is meaning
in such a world
analyzing cause condition motive
distinguishing ought from ought not
we blame denounce warn
argue argue argue and argue
and what does it amount to
[...]
if righteousness is on one side then wrongness is on the other
if there is the good there is the evil
for wrongness must not remain wrong
one corrects what is wrong by the power of words
for the evil must not thrive
one lets the good prevail by violence
but if there is logic there is counterargument
the triumphant good confronts a new evil
or the proud good turns into an evil
[...]
can words move the world
if they can
how is it different from moving the world by violence
words arrest momentarily what never stops moving
as if what is happening now has already passed
and words call forth words
words stare at words
all the while
bombs fall onto the wordless like flower petals
no one possesses reality
the world is there because no one can move it at his will
if the world had a meaning would there have been such sufferings
if through information through knowledge one can see clearly
would the world have turned out like this
