5
i always had a problem with languages. i never learned any of them well enough to feel comfortable expressing myself. how does anyone even learn a language? it is such a broad and complicated system. words, tenses, expressions, meanings, tropes. all of it amasses into an enormous complexity that is as incomprehensible as it is intuitive.
you learn to feel the language. you learn its prismatic alterations and the slightest changes in shade and saturation. then you tread your own tapestry of mening by deciding on the cornerstones of your vocabulary, on tone and sound, on rhythm, flow and harmony.
to master a language is to master an art form.
so how does one learn a language if it is not a methodical craft but an intuitive art?
i started writing in english around four years ago. it still feels like an alien thing to me. the phrasing often feels off. the words are not quite the words of my thoughts. the patterns and style are not the ones i chose, but the ones i came across and found useful over time. i never used a spoken language as a writing language. so all my texts were silent, almost sacral in that way. now it is just a day-to-day way to communicate, to convey, to express. very mundane. very prosaic.
today i had a call about the translation of an essay. it was strange to talk with someone i have never seen in person, yet feel as though i have known for years. not as a friend. more like a work acquaintance.
the whole nature of relationships has shifted so much since covid. i often think about how the concept of the other, their nature, their character, maybe even their spirit, exists within one's mind. how do we carry each other? how do we change within one another? how does knowing someone change the way they are perceived from then on? when do we decide that we know someone?
all of this leaves my thoughts tangled, a maze of debris in the forest's depths . i do not feel like i know anyone. or that anyone knows me. i do not feel like anyone carries me within them, or that i exist within somebody's mind in the wholeness of my existence.
and that makes me feel very lonely.
i stayed in bed until late, daydreaming. there is nothing sweeter than carefree leisure on a summer morning.
later, while slowly crawling out of the cozy yet nauseating shell of my home, i met a girl at a coffee shop. i want to ask her out, but i always feel like i am rushing things. she asked me for my name. i already knew hers. i know more about her than she knows about me, probably. it is one of the perks of living in a small town full of talkative baristas.
i hate being misunderstood. i hate when people take their assumptions for fair judgments. probably because i am really bad with words. i always feel like anything i say should be accompanied by layers of interpretive subtitles. however it is not hate, but probably just shame. shame at not being able to pretend well enough to pass for a normal human.
anyway. i should watch my face and my words. masks and pretence. indeed, the world is but a scene if everyone is forced to be an actor.
the card on the picture is "the Chaos" from Etteilla's tarot deck. it reminds me of Dharmakaya pictured by Don & Era Farnsworth.