the art of definition

the art of definition

There is no method for definition: to learn how to define. Definition is a consequence of imitation, its foundation so deeply grounded in our perceptual models of reality that any reform would only be an aberration of the original fortuity. We learnt to use a system of language through imitation and even the precision of mathematics remains illusory as a result of being an imposed code of rules embedded in the ambiguous amalgam of imitative language.

I would live,
dedicate my entire life
to defining a single word
properly – justly. 
That word would be:
	melancholy
I do have other candidates,
perhaps I would define another
still stranger word: mysterious.

What is mysterious?

That which cannot be grasped intellectually.
That which is still unknown, unexplained,
perhaps the truly mysterious is
that which can never be explained by thought,
that which is intrinsically unknowable. 

Here I am defining a word with other words. 
But I would not stop there. 
I would access zones of intuition,
a series of instruments predating language,
like an amulet that contains an entire cosmology
or a monolith that served as genesis to historical memory.
I would anchor my word to other unreliable words,
vague words that by their very nature would
serve as examples of the intangibility 
of my definition for mysterious.  

I would, for example, make mysterious 
synonymous with Life, Happiness, Nirvana, etc 

ect.

Contemporary Poetry

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