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Can language capture the enormity of experience? At first thought, I would have to say no. That is why expressions such as “loss of words” ever exist. Recall the most heart-throbbing moments in our life. What are the best descriptions for the thrill of skydiving, or the joy of sailing on a sunny day? Any language would be too plain to explicate the enormous experience. That is we are to “experience your life” instead of “to read a life” (although reading is not bad either), because they can never be equitable.

However, when I think about it, it is true that language can never fully describe experience, but it still helps to remind our sensations to relate to existing experience. Think about how often we use one experience to describe another-- “the soup tastes like salty water” or “he walks like a duck.” We often use some common experience to describe something that is not readily seen or experienced. And as our own enormous experience is built up and becomes prevalent to everyone (so that they are not “enormous” anymore I guess), new languages are going to be invented to despict this particular experience. To illustrate, how would you describe bungee jump to someone who has never done it before? You would probably tell him “ It is like riding The Abyss in Disney Park without a seat but just cords tied to your feet.” But how does it feel to ride the Abyss? You would try to describe it as “ a car rushing down the steepest hill you have ever experience and ten times faster, without holding the steering wheel of course.” Now how would you describe the feeling of car rushing down the hill to people from hundreds of years ago who had no cars back then? You tell them “it is like sitting in a carriage driven by some hysteric horses.” The point I am trying to make is that driving a carriage is used to describe driving a car and rushing in a car can more or less depict the feeling of riding the Abyss, which in turn is the closest experience to bungee jump. Later on, when bungee jump becomes so common that everyone has such experience, it could become an “adjective” itself such that “Skydiving is like bungee jump with a bag and your do land on the ground.” and the audience could actually imagine how it feels to skydive and that would actually achieve the purpose of converying the experience.

In short, I guess language can never describe the full feeling of enormous experience, but it does somewhat capture the essence of it by relating it to the closet existing experience we have.