“Words are futile devices,” sings Sufjan Stevens. His song “Futile Devices” is one I listen to religiously, and the line “words are futile devices” is perhaps one of my favorite phrases of all time.
I explore futility more than I explore anything else; it’s my favorite solitary thought experiment. I run things through my head: food is not futile; another throw blanket on my bed is futile; music is not futile; telling myself I'll stop buying coffee is futile.
Words are something I never include in my exercises on futility. I love words; I love that a specific string of words will stir some inexplicable feeling inside me; I love reading caution signs; I love when I get a text that gives me an ETA. I don’t find these words futile at all.
I also hate words; I hate drunk texting your ex; I hate terms and conditions; I hate when people beg to be with someone. These are words I find incredibly futile.
So where do words land on the scale of futility? Maybe how I codify the futility of words is based on the actions and intentions that are given to them, but if this is true, then what are words? Are words not the meanings we encode on them, and are they not defined by the context they are used in?
If I look at words strictly as a collection of letters, then maybe I do think they are futile. The more I turn over the idea in my head, the more I realize I am not entirely sure of what words are. Maybe my uncertainty about the definition of words proves that I find them futile, or maybe it just proves that I am not adept enough to come to the conclusion myself.
Even as I torture myself with this simple thought exercise on words, I am thinking about how I’ve always wanted to get a tattoo of the phrase “Words are futile devices.” I feel that maybe the desire for the tattoo might be correlated with the nostalgic feelings I harbor for the movie that allowed me to discover this song (it might also be the comedic irony I find in having a tattoo about the futility of words as an English major).
But ultimately, if I am so willing to get the phrase tattooed, then a part of me thinks that I have to have some subconscious resonance with the meaning of the phrase.
A part of me wanted to write my thoughts on words in an effort to potentially self-psychoanalyze into coaxing out some Freudian conclusion as to why I feel the way I feel about words (so far, the results are disappointing).
In what is perhaps a coward’s response to the challenge of definition, I will state my absolute claim that I think words are just what you make of them. I think the concept of futility is as ever-changing as the concept of words, and any effort I can put into defining either would be futile (no pun intended).
Ultimately, I encourage you to use your words as often or as little as you’d please, and to think with every spoken word or text message whether or not you feel this collection of letters you used has some or any weight at all.