2.32
Certain expressions can feel as though they’re puncturing through language to things themselves (poetic expressions or Zen language). However, an interpretation of this that says we’re puncturing through human artifact and reaching the reality of a thing is going too far. Rather, it may feel this way because we’re approaching and according more with the thing and avoiding calcified ways of speaking, thinking, and being.
We can pay ontological attention to language and be struck by its thisness: words and phrases, yes, but also a particular language or even language itself as phenomenon. When words feel wrong, in some ways it’s language itself telling us this. Language comes forth from the world.
We can pay heed and respond to both linguistic and thingly beings, and their ways of being together. This means we can choose how we attend to calcified expressions: we pick them up, as though ready-to-hand (§2.4), or see their relations with things as calcified and, so, as a sign to return to things themselves.
In returning to things, new expressions and forms of language can emerge. Like when you dip your foot in the water: the fish scatter, and return shortly after, nibbling at the edges.