A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Seven-Hundred-And-Seventy-Seven

I have been thinking a good deal about the strange concept that limiting the meaning of a symbol is a form of violence.  This may seem a very strange idea, but it is not all that hard to understand if one considers it for a moment. A symbol's point is to have a floating meaning, in a sense.  If one wished to provide a singular meaning, why not just provide that instead?  When one provides a symbol, one is creating a certain freedom, a space of possibilities.  To define that symbol, then, is to limit that space, to cut it down and remove possibilities, and, thus, to limit freedom.  That is inherently an act of force in a sense, is an imposition of will, that is to say it is violence.  It is also the essence of communication, of course.  In some way, I cannot deny the idea.  I have to even recognize that by sharing this particular set of thoughts I am imposing an awareness of violence on you as the reader, am doing, potentially, harm to you by this.  I know this is something I must wrestle with a bit more, but I think I am at a point in my understanding of writing where I cannot have a morally uncomplicated relationship with it again.