Yesterday I was reading a very special book in italian of a polish writer, about his adventures in India and then other places, sitting in a train in Milan with an Indian neighbor. He formulates his perception of language in that time as something physical, like a wall you smash against.
I feel it like a cage. As a bird which can tweet only “si” or “no”, being moved around in conversations and circumstances. As a prisoner who can see the light in a small window under the ceiling, but can’t get to it, and the fingers slide off the wet stones.
Human communication is the most tangible thing in the world. It leaves deep traces, it uses sets of soft and harsh tools, it depends on a spatial situation, it is felt physically —and yet we cannot design it. We should arrange things around and hope for the best.
Millions of codes and symbols you use to convey your reality, and then they structure your brain, and become your reality. Whatever you say, it’s true in the moment. Whatever you say, it slightly changes you. Whatever you say, it becomes you.
So tell me something.
