This is a daring attempt to explain the most fundamental limitation of language with this very limited tool.
"The words are no more than signposts. That to which they point is not to be found within the realm of thought but a dimension within yourself that is deeper, and infinitely vaster than thought." - Eckhart Tolle
"Language and words cannot possibly express what is inconceivable. Words are at the mercy of an egocentric empiricism. They find their foundation in the consciousness from which they arise and to which they return. The ego has its origins in a mental image: 'I am the body.'" - Jean Klein
Language is a double-edgd sword. It has both a blessing and a curse. Its blessing part must be apparent to everyone. The following passage by someone who is considered a leading linguist, which I stumbled upon last week, depicts both the blessing language brings to us and the contribution linguistics can make.
"Human language is a unique mental faculty emerged at some stage in the evolution of human species. It is the foundation for a variety of creative abilities humans possess, and forms the core of what is sometimes called 'the human capacity.' Since this ability is one that was bestowed upon humans by nature in the process of our evolution, it can be studied (with appropriate abstraction and idealization) as a natural phenomenon using the method developed in the natural sciences. In addition, since the ability to acquire and use human language is universally and uniquely bestowed on human beings, it forms, almost by definition, the core of the special characteristic that could be called 'human nature,' and, accordingly, linguistic research can make a rather fundamental contribution to the inquiry into 'human nature' in the humanities. Furthermore, by 'externalizing' an infinite array of linguistic expressions generated by the language capacity embedded in the human mind, language fulfills an important role in interaction with others (including 'communication'), and, as such, this social function can become the subject of social science research."
This otherwise eloquent passage seems to me rather one-sided and even naive as it ignores or isn't aware of the curse part of language. Language as a faithful servant of our mind, which in turn is supposed to be our servant, is what makes so many people remain trapped in their own mind-made prison. I've met few people who can't label in their mind people and things they meet not only for the first time but even for the second and more times instead of perceiving their presence as it is.
I wonder how many linguists are aware of this labeling function of language as they themselves like many other people must be labeling people and things unconsciously. The more conceptual labels we attach with language on people and things we meet, the more we distance ourselves from them and their essence.
The most problematic type of this conceptual labeling is the one targeted at ourselves. The majority of human beings seem so sure that they are their bodies, names, occupations, statuses, etc. Facebook, for example, is full of manifestations of such illusions ad nauseam. But the truth is that all these identities are nothing but illusions of the ego made by our mind through the intermediary of language. Who are we then? We are. Period.