Martin’s “words are wind” have echoed in my mind this week, as I mindfully hold onto caution in the midst of conversation with fresh internet acquaintances. Lofty praise and silver tongued exultations rush past my ears, tolling my warning chimes of hot wind blown up my ass. And once my wariness becomes apparent, hostility ensues.
“I have been sincere and honest with you, kind and praising, and you think I’m a liar?!”
Which is when George R. R. Martin’s famous lines thundered in my head like klaxons: “Words are wind”…
I should know, right? I peddle enough of them on a regular basis to know the weight of words. They’re porous things, by nature. Little things, cast about with abandon by hollow hearted Jacks, sprinkled liberally over turds and gems alike, and more often misused and maltreated by careless and ruthless slingers, no where more so than on this here our precious Internet.
Words are wind, fickle and empty, easily performed by whatever harlequin who so wishes to turn a head or bend a heart to their will.
But! That is not to say they’re inherently without value…
Here’s an example you really should partake of; words by the poet and songwriter Elle Cordova, cobbled together like the quilt of a board of heartless marketing execs – the exact kind of windful garble you should be ever wary of, but injected with a sardonic will and intent – which inspires to prove my point. Every single word Cordova utters in her sing-a-long recitation perform a lie, or at the very least the disingenuous charade of brand-building marketing. Of commercialist propaganda, capitalist manipulation, words neutered of truth and honesty and packeted with frills and sparkle, bells and whistles, to tug at your most primitive fears, insecurities, and best wishes. These are words meant to dishonestly tug at your leash. And yet, Cordova breathes life into them like they were never designed by committee to contain.
The results are beautiful lies, beautifully unmasked, a wind dissected, to let us hear just how soulless these words are used. Because if someone were to breathe meaning into them, they would take on their true shape: Utter poison.
Words need intent behind them to carry weight. And that intent takes effort. Depending on the words themselves, sometimes a Herculean labour to tear them from the wind and fetter them to some kind of actual meaning. Some kind of truth. That labour is worthwhile. It might even be beautiful. But, and this is vitally important!, it is not enough to say or write the words to tie them down to something concrete. You need to invest them with yourself, breathe life into them like Cordova just did, and that’s just not something a lot of people have much practise at.
Words are wind – more often than not – because the art of making them into something more is wasting away. Even among the few who keep the craft alive, many lie as much as those who don’t care a whit if their words hold meaning or not. For most, only action and habit and dependability can tether them and give them weight.
So if you take offence that I regard your words like something flighty and ephemeral, it either tells me that you are a blessed summer child who has rarely been lied to, or rarely recognized those lies, or that you’re one of the vultures on the wind, aghast that one of your marks has the audacity not to take your predatory fibs at face value.
/Sebastian Lindberg 19/12-2023
WastedWords 