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Tonight is symbolic. At least it has been bring to mind symbols for me. Iconic words that roll through my mind are kind of driving me crazy.
Names.
The notion of names has been bugging me. Names have power of course. They are descriptors for the world. They give definition to the world. What is an apple to us with out its name. An apple still but we could not remember it really the same. Think about the word apple. Say it and picture it and you taste it. You smell it. It has reality in the name. Can you have a town without a name? What Atlanta be with out its name? Or Knoxville?Or New Orleans? Some have more power than others. Who can hear New Orleans and not evoke an image of those tight European style streets and the heat and the street players hocking their meager skill? In some of the traditions of the occult a true name gives something or someone essence. Maybe it is the name god or the universe knows you as. To have someones true name is to have power over them if you know the way to use it. Today the world tries to reduce those names to numbers but it is still names which give the holder a measure of influence. If I come to you and say your name you will react differently than if I were a stranger saying miss or sir. If I have your social security number, then i have access to a door that is your information. The things that describe you. This all started in my head cause I realized than none of my friends now know my true name i was born with. There may be a handful of people in the world who do and almost all of them are family. I am not certain I know what to think of this. Did i deliberately do that or did it just happen. Most of you know me as McCoy. Would I be different if my name were Robert or Holbert? Maybe we take nick names as a way of protecting ourselves. Or maybe we do it because it is the person we want to be. Call me McCoy because this is my name that gives me power. I don't know. To be honest I am not certain I know many of your real names either. Does that make less of a friend or one? Like I said it is stuff that will drive you mad if you let it roll in your head. I should stop rambling now but I thought I would put my madness on the page for now. Who knows how or why? Best not to think to long sometimes. But still....
Do you know my name?
TechNoir
Names.
The notion of names has been bugging me. Names have power of course. They are descriptors for the world. They give definition to the world. What is an apple to us with out its name. An apple still but we could not remember it really the same. Think about the word apple. Say it and picture it and you taste it. You smell it. It has reality in the name. Can you have a town without a name? What Atlanta be with out its name? Or Knoxville?Or New Orleans? Some have more power than others. Who can hear New Orleans and not evoke an image of those tight European style streets and the heat and the street players hocking their meager skill? In some of the traditions of the occult a true name gives something or someone essence. Maybe it is the name god or the universe knows you as. To have someones true name is to have power over them if you know the way to use it. Today the world tries to reduce those names to numbers but it is still names which give the holder a measure of influence. If I come to you and say your name you will react differently than if I were a stranger saying miss or sir. If I have your social security number, then i have access to a door that is your information. The things that describe you. This all started in my head cause I realized than none of my friends now know my true name i was born with. There may be a handful of people in the world who do and almost all of them are family. I am not certain I know what to think of this. Did i deliberately do that or did it just happen. Most of you know me as McCoy. Would I be different if my name were Robert or Holbert? Maybe we take nick names as a way of protecting ourselves. Or maybe we do it because it is the person we want to be. Call me McCoy because this is my name that gives me power. I don't know. To be honest I am not certain I know many of your real names either. Does that make less of a friend or one? Like I said it is stuff that will drive you mad if you let it roll in your head. I should stop rambling now but I thought I would put my madness on the page for now. Who knows how or why? Best not to think to long sometimes. But still....
Do you know my name?
TechNoir
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I have always wanted a nick-name, a way to keep my true name secret. But no nick-name ever sticks. Possibly b/c the name I was born with is also my true name ? I don't know. (a lot of people in no way resemble the name they were born with; I've decided that is because it is not their true name)... I really, really hate having people know my full name. For that reason, I almost never tell middle name...
It really pisses me off that I have to wear a name tag at work all day, with my real name printed right on it, for any passing stranger to see...
I really need a nickname to put on there.....
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I have so many names!
There is a small contingent of Nashville BBS Users from the 80s that know me as "Ian" although my handle was actually "Assassian" (A nickname that got me in trouble in college and hence was discontinued, although I remained "Ian" in College as a handle)
My wife dubed me "Speaks" and that is probably as commonly disseminated as my real name.
People call me on the phone occasionally and ask for "Nobbin." I've had that name for 5 years.
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I THOUGHT I knew your real name... Or at least most of it. *shrug* Actually, while I would certainly laugh at you if it turned out that your real name is Humperdink, I don't think it would change my idea of you at all. But then, I think the power of words is often overestimated (blasphemy, I know). But when I hear the word apple I get a general sense of a fruit that you eat. When I picture an apple in my head, it's a bundle of sensations, a vivid picture and memory - the name doesn't even come up, generally. If you want me to remember a person that you're talking about, don't tell me their name, tell me something that I saw them do, or something I heard them say, so I can think about a memory I have and see them - if you give me a name I won't even know who they are, unless I've made a specific effort to learn it, because it's a social necessity. But I may have my brain on backwards. :)