Naming 'it'

[I really don't know what I'm talking about! But there's something niggling away at me about the power of naming. If you've any thoughts, do share them]

When you name it, it becomes 'a thing’

This isn't about naming people. This about giving a name to 'it'. In this case, let's call 'it' a concept.

I start with unformed, unvoiced ideas floating around in my head like free-flowing particles. They have no form, but they do exist.

As I put them into words, they begin to coalesce and align into a shape, becoming increasingly stable at the core but still fluid and ever-changing at the margins. As I test out different words, the shape changes and grows more stable.

But it is still not 'a thing'. There is nothing tangible about it. It has no life outside my head except as a nebulous cloud of thoughts put into words. I could not pass 'it' to another as I might pass a ball because it is not yet an 'it'.

And then I name it. Still-nebulous ideas are given a name and in the giving of the name they are given a boundary. They solidify and take substance within that boundary. That act of naming it makes it 'a thing'.

Of course, this is all illusionary. The naming does not change anything. Ideas do not have substance. And yet... By the act of naming our musings, we have created something that has a potential life beyond us. It becomes something sufficiently tangible for others to grasp.  It takes on a life of its own as people interact with the name and become part of the shaping of what was, once, ours alone.