A harmless cliché

 We're each of us blind in our way. Distractions rob us of focus. Technology robs us of memory. Repetition robs us of comprehension.

You know the child's game, if you say your name enough times, it becomes gibberish? That holds true for whole concepts, even entire bodies of thought.

For example, take Nietzsche's old line,

"If you stare into an abyss, it also stares into you."

 Right? Well...

That has been rendered meaningless through repetition. It's a refrigerator magnet. It's cliché. It's harmless.

But when was the last time you really thought about that?

What is an abyss? And if you stare into it, why? What about it calls to you?

And if it stares into you, it stands to reason something in you must also be calling to it. And that, my friend, is anything but harmless, if you really reflect on it.

So the question becomes, if profound meaning can be robbed of something by so simple a task as repetition, which is more fundamental? Which is more true? Your name, or the gibberish?


- The Empty Man (2020)

The Empty Man (2020)