Saturday, March 30, 2013

YES/NO YES/NO NO








i.

If I were to ask you, “Do you like apples?” and you said “yes”, that would be enough for me. If I wanted to continue the conversation further, because you had a cute face, I could ask a “why?” or “what else do you like?” but the answer of “yes” is simple enough to move onward.

If you were to say “no”, I would be forced, regardless of my physical attraction to you, to ask an additional question of “why?”.

The inherent trap of the yes/no question is explanation; the “no” offering up more exploration, more investigation of the very act of the question. A “no” only demands more questions and cannot be considered an answer, having thus opened up the cauldron of the original question to begin with.

The good thing is not to ask questions looking for answers but looking for more questions.

The yes in a sentence is dead; the no is what is alive.


ii.

As we know, language is what we use, commonly, to communicate. I can say “this is a screen you’re looking at” and, in most instances, you would agree and we would complete our process. But if I were to say “this is an apple you’re looking at” you would, justly, find issue with the statement as a matter of falsity. This doesn’t have an origin in anything to do with language, rather, with what we use language for.

As I re-read the previous paragraph, I am struck by the harshness of each individual word, the jowlness of each individual letter.

A word is not a line, but a process.

As soon as a word is uttered, it is narrated. It begins the issue of an ongoing conspiracy against life and so forth. By narrating a “no” one implores oneself to additional questions, additional facts to back up the original claim.

Our selves are usually uttered in an abundance of yeses. We hold these things to be true, and offer up our own improvable proof to the contrary. We either do or do not believe the world’s climate is changing. Proof on either side is irrelevant.

But such a debate is obvious; there are those saying yes and those saying no. Those who say “yes” will always doubt the no-sayers:

Why do you say no?


iii.

To know nothing is an inherent “no” in itself. It blooms with possibility. The absolute injunction of the “yes” is a substitute for a passive longing for a less aggressive posture.

If it were fashionable to be utterly aggressive in its attack on language as a “thing” one would surely be left to their bed by choice.

I could say to you, “you’re a fat lazy slob” and you could just as well say “no, I’m not”.

This kind of conversation would require far more effort to extort. If you were a fat and lazy slob, wouldn’t you know it, acknowledge it, for your own internal purposes?

Instead, a “no” answer requires an abundance of facts, tests, conclusive proof, that you are, in fact, a fat lazy slob.

And yet these words, too, have an obvious tether to ideas we all hold about what those words may mean. The word “fat” can mean a multitude of things; “lazy” is in the eye of the beholder.

“Slob” is something that is purely nonsense, a word made up for some reason that has taken on additional meanings.

The word still lingers with its own institutional meaning.


iv.

No, I will not be a woman. No, I will not be a doctor. No, I will not hate Taylor Swift. No, I will not enjoy Serbia. No, I will not accost a foreign woman on 2nd Avenue. No, I will not be French. No, I will not trash the person who observes the subway platform for not calling me a fine man.

I will not expect expectations. This is a “yes” in the form of a “no”.

No, I will not take acid. No, I will not take a radically understanding of theatre. No, I will not be willed into submission. No, I will not be a pigeon.


v.

If you’re cute, I would say “no” to any question you asked, just to make you talk to me more.