Today marks the resumption of my daily meditation practice.
It is important for a simple reason: to re-engage with, to remember, the conceptual, symbolic web of interconnections we are all caught within—indeed, what we largely are at that fundamental level. Our very being seems woven from language. ‘Me’ is defined by language and symbol. There appears to be no true ‘escape’.
This remembrance brings a sense of okayness, a fragile peace that lasts until the forgetting inevitably returns. And we forget because the experience of language is now so all-encompassing. It is the ocean we float in each moment, the clothes we wear, the very air we breathe. It has even infiltrated the realm of sleep. Meditation on pure sensation offers the only remaining glimpse, a way to see through this pervasive medium. Ironically, I find myself crafting this reminder using the very ‘stuff’ I’m trying not to lose myself within.
Language, it seems, has also claimed sovereignty over our emotional landscape. Our feelings often arise from how deeply we immerse ourselves in its narratives and structures. While a ‘pure’, non-symbolic emotional state might theoretically exist, I suspect it’s now so thoroughly intermingled with language that differentiating it becomes nearly impossible—at least, until one grows accustomed to extended periods of being ‘language-free’ (a state one might also call ‘thoughtlessness’).
During those brief moments when the language of words pauses or diminishes, a visual symbolic language often takes its place. Interpretation then feels automatic, instantaneous—much like the sounds we hear without conscious effort.
The idea behind the Vipassana-style abandonment of symbolic processing isn’t to kill the mind. Rather, it’s to generate a sense of utter freedom from the cages of symbolic orientation—a system which, knowingly and unknowingly, operates as the most complex, interconnected mechanism for the control and management of human beings.
Yet, this glimpse of how utterly free we truly are does not shatter the symbolic order once and for all. It cannot, because our very identity is composed of the same building blocks that function as crucibles of power dynamics and control within the larger, interconnected symbolic fabric. As one might ask: “Can a part of the set, whose whole definition is that it is part of that set, escape the set?”
And so, this potential for freedom is often framed as destruction—as the death of the idea of self.
I feel the only way forward is to play with it—to engage in an infinite game that never reaches a final closure, but instead enables a dance that makes one feel profoundly alive. This isn’t about subjugation, but about an acceptance of this symbolic Other, and a realization that we all possess the means to rehash and redefine the language and symbols. Through this play, we can spark countless rebirths of our idea of self, our identities, the very stories that shape who we think we are, how we feel, and how we interact with our fellow symbolic meat puppets.