metonymy4u

Speakers of English often struggle to understand the difference between the words effect and affect. Used as verbs, the first means to create and the second means to alter. At the root of our confusion lies a metaphysical distinction between content and process which I suspect we are slowly learning to outgrow. The original notion was that the world contains substances whose essence is superficially affected, in appearance only, by the accidents of spatio-temporal existence. Underlying the surface effects of a contingent and ever changing experience were supposed to be the more enduring sources of life, the universe and everything. And of course, the idea of God is nothing more than the notion of the most perfect of these self-effecting causes, an essence eternally immune to the affectations of this mortal coil. The problem with this model is, of course, the effect on us as living, suffering beings who are more and more aware of the emptiness of abstraction. What solace can we ever derive, in our loneliness, from some unattainable, eternal golden affect forever underwriting all the effects of this imperfect, beautiful and tragic world?