The word join is intermediate between the notions of one and many. We can see the world as wholly joined; and if we do so, at this time the manyness is oneness. Further, if we separate the oneness of the world, at this time the oneness is manyness.
However, joining is most often more selective. When, in the definition of Word, the words sizzling and green were put together as one line of verse, they were joined. All art and all activity is a kind of joining—for things are meeting in everything we do.
A ring is put on a finger. There is, then, a junction of ring and finger. Ring changes finger; and finger changes ring; for a finger without a ring is different from a finger with a ring; and a ring without a finger is different from a ring with a finger. One can say, if one chooses, that when a ring is put on a finger, there has been an interference with or lessening of the ring and also of the finger; and one can say there has been an assistance of and a heightening of the ring and also of the finger.
Two people join hands. When John and Mary join hands, they become, each, less and more. If they care for each other, the less and more makes for more in each.
The junctions that can be made in the world are ever so many. You can’t number them. A junction which now can be stated, is of tree and frying pan. Both tree and frying pan become new things when they are thought of as together or joined. The thinking of them as together—just the thinking of them as together, as in the sentence: “There were the tree and the frying pan”—does something decidedly worth noticing to both. From then on, it is a tree-frying pan and a frying pan-tree. This was so before they were put in the sentence I have given; but it is important that what is so be clearly affirmed as being so.
These two differing objects were joined in the sentence given. The junction exists in the sentence—however, it would not be too difficult tomorrow to place a frying pan within the branches of a tree. It isn’t urgent to do this; but it is worthwhile, considering the close possibility of such a junction’s occurring. And in a kitchen, it is possible to look at a frying pan and see a tree through the window. Again, the two things have been joined. There are other ways.
This is not all, however. A brown cat exists. A brown cat can be seen as joining tree and frying pan as joined, and tree and frying pan separately. The cat, then, undergoes change by two things and causes change in two things. —It should be seen that a thing can join a junction. —And we have the interacting, inter-being trio of tree, frying pan, cat.
Are there any two things or any group of more than two things which cannot be joined? As soon as we say that some things cannot be joined, we already have joined them, because we have seen these worrying, repelling objects as together or in a group. —The answer is No, then, to the question: Are there any things which cannot be joined?
The mind of man is trying to get more power from the universe, for when the mind feels power, it becomes more powerful itself. The universe is a boundless, stunningly satisfying system of possible combinations, simple, complicated, subtle, funny, terrifying, soothing.
Water and steel joined does something to the mind. Water-steel and the Elizabethan drama, seen as combined, may puzzle one; but without the existence of the combination one could not be puzzled by it. The three things are real; so they can be selected from all the things that are real, if there is a purpose—a purpose even of fun—in doing so.
The history of feeling shows an increasing readiness and ability to make new joinings or combinations.
Romanticism as a thing of literary or artistic history, is that which showed man ready to make some important new joinings or combinations. When a lonely tree on a desolate mountain in mist was regarded as of the human mind in its inwardness—a new combination or kind of combination was affirmed. The combination stirred, disturbed, displeased; but it seems it was necessary, for it has remained: it is still with us.