I just finished reading 1984, which was a really good book (right up there with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I found out the other day was written by my friend's UNCLE. Yeah...direct uncle Ken Kesey. but that's beyond the point...)
This one sentence in 1984 one of those that has been haunting me for days:
It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.
*cringe**screech screech screech*
I love words. A lot, actually. Often of the times in conversation I have to double think what I'm saying, and change the words I initially intend to say to save myself the trouble of thenceforth having to explain myself.
For example, never in a million years could I say in a normal conversation, "stop masticating so loudly" despite the fact that to masticate means "to chew." Nor could I ever warn somebody that a particular endeavor is parlous without them assuming I'm speaking of a beauty parlor. No...I mean that what you're about to do is dangerous.
I've recently let the word "sans" (meaning without, from the french word "without") slip into a conversation, only to receive a French accented reply of, "fancy language!" Despite that the person I was speaking to did know what I was saying didn't deter the off-kilter response.
And one last idiomatic scenario, the only response I received from referring to the MPR during combined lunch a "snafu" was a roar of laughter. Same when I said I wanted to defenestrate my Econ teacher (and I doubt they were laughing because they knew what I had said).
All of this not to brag about my vocabulary, but to point out a vital truth portended by Orwell himself. Without intention or even consciousness of the deed, we are slowly but surely (and successfully) destroying language. Who's to say the texting, the abbreviations, lack of understanding won't one day make the majority of our dictionary obsolete? Already, the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entires for 171, 476 words in use, and 47, 156 obsolete words. I can't imagine why that number would fall.
It just seems such a shame that so many words are essentially being lost as means of expression.
Which brings me to another point:
vulnerability (which was initially going to be the name of this post). I find myself constantly in need of writing about one thing or another: an emotion, an event in the past, something I wish to happen, a piece of fiction, a poem, etc...but immediately after writing it throwing it away.
another kind of destruction of words.
One of the main beliefs of the totalitarian regime in the book 1984 was the belief that if the Party could change any written record of history, then that history never existed. History was constantly being rewritten to fit the ideals and angles of the Party or "Big Brother", and since that was the history hey had created, it was the history that had happened. The act of "doublethink" was the ability to take part in the process of these lies or any other lies knowingly, and yet whole heartedly believe in the created reality of these lies.
As appalling and as impossible as the aforementioned scenario seemed as I read it, I soon realized that most of us (especially me) are guilty of the same thing, if not on that scale.
Writing makes you vulnerable. It's the connection between your brain and the rest of the world, and sometimes the thoughts and ideas you have are scary. Sometimes they make you feel cliche, sometimes they make you feel silly, and other times they make you feel downright nonsensical.
After writing a poem, lyrics, blog, anything...despite how good it feels or how much you like what you wrote, you will inevitably return to that piece of writing wishing it had never happened. You're ashamed not necessarily because of what you wrote, but of what you felt when you wrote it. You don't like reminding yourself of how you were when you were depressed, angry, anxious, in love...because its so much more socially acceptable to just be "chill". Out of touch with your emotions and not imposing them on the other chill people around you.
So...you do what makes sense. You throw it away, you delete it, you burn it.
Out of sight, out of mind, right?
And yet that act of erasing the past puts us in the position of being a tyrant over our own emotions and mind. We pretend that erasing history means that it never happens.
After depressing break ups we do the same thing with photos, "artifacts" (be it gifts or notes given by a particular person), to erase whatever it is we don't want to remember at that point in time.
But no matter how much we erase or destroy, it still happened.
But there's one thing that can't be easily altered, and that's the human memory. If we try, it will drive us to the point of insanity.
Rather than trying to erase in the past, why don't we revel in its beauty? Bask in the fact that we are human, we have indescribable emotions, and attempting to describe it with our words is art.
Art is history
History is art
