10 April 2012
"Every other man spoke a language entirely his own, which he had figured out by private thinking; he had his own ideas and peculiar ways. If you wanted to talk about a glass of water, you had to start back with God creating the heavens and earth; the apple; Abraham; Moses and Jesus; Rome; the Middle Ages; gunpowder; the Revolution; back to Newton; up to Einstein; then war and Lenin and Hitler. After reviewing this and getting it all straight again you could proceed to talk about a glass of water. "I'm fainting, please get me a little water." You were lucky even then to make yourself understood. And this happened over and over and over with everyone you met. You had to translate and translate, explain and explain, back and forth, and it was the punishment of hell itself not to understand or be understood." -Saul Bellows, Seize the Day.
Recently, I have been thinking extensively about this quote. Not because of how Bellows captures the true essence of what it is to be a human confined in his own thoughts, or even that he was a profound man and easily one of my favourite authors. But simply how everything we think is merely lost in translation till the moment we speak, express ourselves. To some, even those close to us, our words - which are a manifestation of our thoughts - are a blur. A sort of distant pair of headlights in the fog. You can see the lights beaming through the thick smoke in the midst of the night, but you cannot be entirely certain whether it is a truck, a van, a Prius, or even the classic 1956 Ferrari 250 GT Tour de France Berlinetta. We lack a vivid interpretation and understanding to our fellow beings, thus resulting in a world of invisible people. Even when you want to bare your soul to someone you find it extremely difficult to do so, we are not quite sure how to express ourselves and - even without the intention to mislead - tend to say many things which are not true.
Even now as I cascade these words on to the canvas of your mind, I paint a different picture for each individual. Two brothers may imagine the same image, but will have different shades, hues and even the thickness of the brush stroke will vary. This will be relevant to themselves and themselves only for reasons unbeknownst to others. Is it a result of our environment? Or is it just who we are? A simple case of Nature vs. Nurture perhaps? Or you have something entirely abstract in mind?
Opuss № I