What's In A Name?

I love naming things. Giving fanciful names to people I write about protects their identity and gives a little color to the story. Naming things like types of music, or kinds of books, or certain types of films, helps people begin to understand what I am trying to say.

But there is a danger in naming. Giving something a name can draw it inward, like sucking all the air out of a balloon, it takes away some of the magnificence, reducing it to an idea, a thought that may, or may not, include its essence.

If I say, "water" most people are familiar with what that is in its broadest sense. If I say, "ice" people think of frozen water, maybe a little cube, maybe a pond for ice skaters, maybe a place where men sit in tiny shacks fishing through holes. Some people will think of all these things and more, but many will only think of it first in the context they are most familiar.

The more specific I am, the easier it is for people to understand my story on a one dimensional level. Like a fisherman I throw out my words, trolling for feelings and understanding using naming instead of flies. I am controlling their thoughts, trying to trick them into believing they are here in this situation, experiencing these things I write about. There is nothing wrong with that, it has been the province of story tellers since the first once upon a time.

The best story tellers know that to really catch someone's mind the story must come within their framework of understanding. I say, "bear." The Inuit may think polar bear, a man in the state of Washington may think grizzly and people in the Appalachians think black bear. I am awakening different thoughts and pictures in different minds. If it is truly important to the story I need to say what kind of bear, but if the bear is there simply to draw on an individual's personal feelings, it might be better not to name it. Then the person fills in all the details and the devil really is in the details. Now this bear is more personal. It is an animal that you relate to through your own thoughts. It takes on a shape and set of feelings that come from your own experiences.

Of course every word is naming something, even words like, "is" relay the idea that something is in the present, as opposed to, "was." And "the" implies this particular thing instead of "a," or any old thing like this. I sometimes wonder at the frustration of people whose vocabulary is severely limited. I cannot imagine having to communicate in broad generalities all the time, but then I am a word person.

There! I have once again named myself, limiting the idea of me as simply someone who likes to use words when I am so much more! I am a woman, a human being, a living creature, a collection of atoms that came together in an amazing, miraculous combination of energy and form.

I am everything and nothing, everything and everything.

I am.