Logos: The Power of Words to Bring the Past Back to Life

Yes, this is about words again, or rather, about the power they possess to, not only make something seem real to us again, but also elicit a reaction to past experiences that we'd forgotten, almost as though they were all happening again for the first time. Words give birth to more words until there are enough of them to propel us back to another time, another place, complete with all our reactions to whatever events transpired back then.

It's not that I ever forgot this experience. But I did, however, forget how that event, which lasted several years, had made me feel at the time. 

It all started with a single entry in a journal that I started and kept more than 20 years ago. Within the pages of all the subsequent entries, I was taken back through that experience, complete with all the sensations and sentiments it elicited from me at the time. I'm led to believe that remnants of emotions stay with us much like the information stays on a computer hard drive forever, until that drive is wiped clean. Only in the event of severe mental or emotional trauma can they be wiped clean from our memory banks, and even then, I believe the human mind possesses the ability to store vast and infinite amounts of sensory perceptions and reactionary emotions in us forever. Where it all goes after we die is anyone's guess. 

The word Logos is simply defined as a statement of fact used to prove a point or support an argument or opinion. It has different uses in different aspects of the human experience, from religion to politics to literature and philosophy. As we string words together with the intent of illustrating something or pointing out its authenticity, the words themselves can take on a life of their own. And in the case of the aforementioned journal entries, the logos brought the entire sequence of events to life for me again, complete with how they had made me feel at the time. I knew it was possible to go back and reread old diary or journal entries. But until the moment I finished reading those, I'd never realized just how capable those handwritten words still were of making me relive the entire experience, all twenty-plus years of it.

The gist of the story isn't what's important here. What matters is that now, I know that if I ever need to travel back there and relive what were some of the most confusing and heart-wrenching, yet some of the most exciting, times of my life, I can do it again as often as I want. I will even go so far as to say that I doubt they'll even lose their ability  to recreate all those old emotions in me, too. And somehow, reading the entries slowly and out loud only adds to their realness, as if my giving voice to them imbues them with even more life and an energy that had been confined in the pages of that journal for years and that I finally set free.

It was an awesome moment, bittersweet yet enlightening, when I felt myself being pulled back into those ancient heartaches and joys, thrills and disappointments, the kind that I never thought I'd experience again. Because, you see, there is absolutely no chance now that any of those things of which I kept track could or would ever happen to me again. My life has changed too much, and certain important characters in the narrative are no longer part of my world for whatever reason. 

It is an awesome thing when you realize something this profound. Merely reading accounts of events that happened more than 20 years ago had the power to bring every single detail and my reactions to those details back to life, but not outside of me. I felt every single shred of what I'd felt then...unutterable joy, crushing sadness, confusion, thrill, doubt, excitement, and anticipation. I'd forgotten how much detail I'd gone into in the writing of those entries, and it's easy to see how just the right amount of explication can mark the difference between good and evocative writing and prose that falls flat and takes the reader nowhere. 

These journal accounts might not elicit the same response in someone who didn't experience what I did. But then again, if the details brought it all back to a larger than life dimension for me, then it might have the same effect on a more objective reader. 

That's neither here nor there, for most people don't write journals for the purpose of letting someone else read them someday. We write them for our own use, our own comfort, as the very act of putting down the details of such experiences is a balm in itself. And if, by chance, someone else does read them someday, then they'll develop a new understanding of their authors that no direct interaction could have produced. 

From a literary perspective, there are three ways in which to approach any topic: ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is based on the speaker's or writer's authority to convincingly expound on the topic; pathos takes the form of wordage intended to elicit emotion; and logos is a form of explication that proves a point. In my case, pathos comes into play a great deal, because compelling me to experience all those old emotions again was the direct result of reading those old journal entries.

So there it is, that old hard-cover notebook with the paisley design and a long narrow blue ribbon marking the place where I stopped in my second reading of those entries. I left it on the sofa next to other reading material, because I have a habit, which is more of a routine really, of reading a little bit of this and a little bit of that each evening when television ceases to hold my interest. 

I'll end this by saying that, in the process of discovering yet another function of the written word, I also am reminded again of how important and valuable journaling is. According to certain medical websites I've consulted, one of its benefits is that putting our thoughts and experiences down can also help us resolve personal conflicts, clear up doubts, or cast a new light on old experiences. 

Whatever their purpose, I've found they achieve their most value when we do take the time to go back to them. In some cases, this may stir up some very unpleasant memories, so each person has to decide for themselves just how far they are willing to go back in time and how much risk they're willing to take to relive difficult moments. It can evolve into almost a self-hypnosis session, as this type of personal and subjective writing has the power to take us right out of the moment and deposit us into another that is far removed by time, thus blurring our all sense of our immediate and present surroundings.

If someone is feeling melancholy and at odds with their past, then that trip down memory lane may be just be the thing that person needs. And they won't know this until they do it. If retracing their steps along that journey proves to be more than they want to deal with, they can always stop, put it down, and go back to it later, or not at all. It may also be that those old accounts will have lost much of their impact over time and may even prove to be more humorous or not nearly as gloomy. 

It's like any other journey. We can always turn back. 

As for me, I'm glad I didn't. I will be revisiting those old journal entries again, because it's all I have left of those times and those individuals who had once played such important roles in my life that I would never want to forget. 

Logos...words: rows of symbols on a page or a screen or in our minds that are the sum and total of who we are, all that we ever did, and that prevent our forgetting the past. If that's not power, then I don't know what is.

The Life-Giving Power of Words

In my last blog entry, I wrote at length about the loss of someone who'd once been very dear to me and whose death I found out about in the worst possible way. It took awhile before I realized that writing that entry had helped me feel a little better. As the days passed since then, I came to appreciate the power that words have to keep not only a person's memory alive, but also his or her essence. Somehow, writing the person's name and then reading and rereading it gives more revivifies the memory, almost as though I could pen or speak J. alive again by just those simple acts.

Of course, it doesn't work that way. But I think back to the biblical passage which reads "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1:14) Aside from the mystical and supernatural connotations of that passage beloved by Christians, the very idea that a word can create life is profound. And I often wonder if it has to do with the fact that some scientists believe that we do indeed create our own realities once we give them all names or speak them into existence in our minds, thus imparting life and immediacy to them. 

Oh, if it were only that easy to conjure up a lost loved by simply speaking his or her name! It's probably best that we can't, because there is no telling how far in the wrong direction such a power could take us. So I'll content myself with writing about those I've loved and lost and seeing them come to life on my computer screen or on a journal page.

There's another aspect of this process that also amazes me and that's when I go through old letters and cards and find the actual handwriting of someone I loved and who is not longer with me. It struck me particularly hard once when I found an old letter my mother had written me many years ago. Seeing her handwriting gave me a sensation that she was very close by, as if no time had passed since her passing and she was still readily available to me. 

There is so much of a person's spirit present in the words they etched out on paper, which now remains a testimony that yes, they really had existed once. And if the handwriting experts are right and no two people's handwriting styles ever match, then all the more reason to see a person in their writing. Those same experts also claim that much can be known about a person based on their particular writing style, which only adds to the belief that there is a sort of sacredness to anyone's handwriting, particularly if they are no longer with us. 

Creative writing is an art form by which we communicate in ways that are more elaborate and emotion-laden than, say, strict business writing or other types of formal communiques such as property deeds, office memos, or legal notices. And once again, there it is, the implication that, by writing, we can indeed create something, make it real and believable, make it felt. So that when I wrote about J. last week, I was in fact re-creating him for my own benefit without even realizing that I was doing just that. It was only later that I realized how much better I'd felt while I was setting down the timeline of our friendship and the years we spent together. Not only did that action being it all back to me, but I also got the sense that it had never really ended and that I could it going just by writing about it from time to time. If, by writing about it as well as about other people and things from my past that I've lost, I can continue to comfort myself until the time comes when I myself will leave this world, after which it will not longer be an issue. 

If there is indeed an afterlife and we will be, as so many believe (and as I like to believe) able to look up those loved ones, I'll be quite busy hunting up all those who've gone before me and who left vast empty spaces where their presences once were. 

In any case, I like the idea of having the ability to create merely with words. Maybe I can't reproduce the exact scenarios of particularly happy times or those individuals who once added substance to my life. But I can still derive some joy from watching them come to life again on my computer screen or on a journal page. 

And that will have to do.