Who knew I was a Taoist all along? I thought I was a nihilist. Not the kind with black turtlenecks but another kind. I've always been a bit interested in Dao/Taoism but never studied. All of the western weirdos who were into Eastern philosophy scared me off. I didn't want to turn into one of them like Steve Jobs or that hippy book about motorcycle maintenance. I believe in living in the moment and always have. Back when I was first studying Chinese I learned all the words for moving around: directions, street signs and so on because those are immediately useful. A lot of them had the character dao in them somewhere, like dadao, boulevard or daoda, arrive.
One day, I step into the vestibule of some random temple and there is a two-story high scroll of the character 到.
As I craned my neck to see the top, I said, "ooooh, I get it! Dao! The way!"
Upon seeing this, I was enlightened.
I can say that the quote resonates with me in the sense that I do believe that we should challenge the words we are using in our everyday life, and potentially swap them out.
That is straight-up Derrida thinking.
"There's glory for you!"
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't - till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you'!" "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more or less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be Master - that's all."
-- Alice in Wonderland
I havent read Derrida, but to clearify Im very fond of looking into the etymology of words to understand the underlying images of the words.
For instance the word "order" in the expression "in order to find x, we need to..." comes from latin "ordinem" meaning "rank, row, line, series, pattern and more".
It is a word that I associate with authority because it comes from the very hierarchical roman empire, and it is typically used in context of keeping people subordinated. Authority can be justified, but we should not normalize it through language, so therefore I like to weed it out.
In its place I plant the word "fern" which is a symbol of the infinitely shaped, infinitely structured. This word has the benefit of moving our attention towards nature, makes us wonder about the infinite, and removes the authority element of the word.
A common feedback I get is; "If you use words nobody has heard of, nobody is going to understand you". But the context often reveal the meaning of a word as long as you use the word with flow.
I like to call this process relighting. To unlight one word and enlight another in fern to loken the language.