Language is everything

“If you can’t say it, you can’t see it. Our ability to say something with the beauty and elegance of our own language carries our way of knowing that thing. Language is the way the thing is known to us. Language makes a continuity for our knowledge and gives us a way of acting on what we know. This is why the bard or the storyteller is in most every culture the one revered for his or her capacity with words. They are the great rememberers.”
– Stephen Jenkinson, Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul

As is my way, I’m re-listening to Die Wise.

From memory, it’s 18 hours in length, which means it takes me about two weeks to go through the book; I usually play an audiobook on my daily walks – with or without the dogs, Eddie and Alfie.

And I always find something in the writing of Stephen Jenkinson that arrests my attention and reminds me once again that if we’re not careful ‘we’ or should I say ‘I’ can fall under the trance of the dominant narrative that is replete with must-havery, being all we can be (i.e. living up to our potential) and maniacal growth with nary a mention of the fact that we live on a finite planet. (If you do undertake a peaceful protest in the United Kingdom and seriously annoy anyone then you might find yourself going to jail for a long time: Just Stop Oil jail terms raise questions over harsh treatment of protesters.)

For me, the only way to break asunder what I hear and have to read – especially in the workplace – is to pray in aid the gift of language – written and spoken – to undo the spell of a culture (not universal or absolute) that is in swoon to a material, binary oppositional world. It doesn’t help that the legal community, of which I’m still part, frowns on any imprecision – a misplaced comma can get you into a lot of hot water!

I’ve told you this before, but since my earliest days I’ve loved words; or to be precise, I’ve loved learning about words. In the early going, I wasn’t introduced to the etymology of English but I’ve made that a bigger part of my lexicon these past years which has been rich and enjoyable. To me, language is everything – personally and professionally (in light of the events around the Post Office inquiry, the jury might be out on whether and to what extent you can call the legal profession a profession anymore; but I made that point before long before the debacle with the Post Office that has wrecked so many lives by dint of the profession’s obsession with making money for a few people). With language or a reliance upon it, comes the need to listen very carefully to what’s being said, what’s not being said and the code within the often immutable way an argument or position is adopted. And then there’s the body language, the cadence, the mood and the volume. In short, language, if done well, can be as good as a blistering encounter with nature, a piece of music or a good meal.

As a slight segue, I wish more people read poetry and not just the well known poets. It might sound hyperbolic but absent poetry, I know my writing and speaking would be very anaemic and sullen. I realise it can be a bit bleak but I do try to find the right words to capture the zeitgeist or the sine qua non of what, for that moment, has captured my attention.

Remember this too: words can make spells but they can also break them, and that’s why it’s so dreadfully important that we pay careful attention to what’s being said and try to craft our own narrative, particularly if we feel comforted or aggrieved with what’s being said or written. Weave into the mythos a well-wrought question and not one as glib as “What do you mean?” and if you’re lucky, you might find yourself involved in a beautiful conversation. On this latter point, I long for the day I can cut the Gordian Knot on this ill-conceived ‘career’ and go out on the saunter with the sole intention of meeting people to speak and commune with. 

I realise that there’a lot more I could say about the beauty and destruction of language but instead I’ll leave you with a poem that I particularly like. 

Take care.

Julian

__________

And Must It Die With You…?
by Antonio Machado

And must the magical world die with you, 
where the memory keeps 
the purest breaths of life, 
the white shadow of love first,
the voice that went to your heart, 
the hand that you wanted to hold in dreams, 
and all the loves
that reached the soul, to the deep sky?
And must your world die with you, 
the old life in order yours and new?
Do the anvils and crucibles of your soul 
work for the dust and for the wind?

Photo by Memories on 35mm on Unsplash