The Cool Web Life, Consciousness, and Existence Quotes

Language is like a magic wand we can use to alter our experience and make it fit any mold we want to put on it. For example, we might not like the sight of a bunch of soldiers marching past us. But if we make sense of this experience by being patriotic and celebrating the soldiers for protecting us, the experience suddenly becomes much more positive. In that sense, language can definitely shape the way we look at the world.

One main effect that language has on our consciousness is that way that it keeps us from feeling too much pain or too much joy at any one time. For Graves, language has a sort of leveling effect on experience. It takes the major ups and downs of life and, by helping us think about them rationally, ends up making the highs and lows less severe. The only problem is that if language does this too much, we might not end up becoming totally numb.

If we were ever able to actually let go of language or escape its cool web, Grave says we would go crazy and die. In other words, he's saying that language is something that filters reality for us and helps us make sense of it in basic terms. But if we ever actually encountered reality in a totally unfiltered way, the experience would be way too overwhelming.