Who are you, again? …or what lies between our words
// July 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // 2000s, Iberian Peninsula, Portugal
As a quick introduction, each blog post on this site will have a music video at the start with the translation at the end – just scroll down to the bottom of the page while the music is playing. The basic concept of the blog is that each post will have some thematic or subject relation to the content or some lines of the song. In this case, the line ‘who are you, again?’ prompted me to think about communication and what lies between words. Next time, I’m going to use the song ‘Volando Voy’ (‘Flying I go’) to talk about travelling around and my next move to Portugal. I hope you all find some value in what is written here and that you enjoy the content. Please feel free to pass on any feedback and let me know what you think about the blog/writing/content. James.
Imagine you were four again. Now don’t be silly, I know that none of your clothes would fit and your spouse would probably kick you out of the matrimonial bed into a bunk with one of the kids. I’m being serious here.
Can you remember how you got what you wanted? Was it through a dopey smile? Was it chubby finger pointed at your favourite teddy bear with the sick stains on it? Or was it with eyes puppy enough to melt the iciest of hearts? As an infant – one doesn’t wish for more than food, warmth and some ace toys. And depending on how doting the parent – these gestures, basic words and phrases are enough.
When we learn a new language, our ability to communicate with words drops to the level of an infant. Except, as adults, our needs and thoughts are vastly more sophisticated. The comfort of a glass of milk is replaced with the complex flavours and the heady rush of a fine wine. Cheap, plastic cars with wheels that fall off are thrown into the toy hamper in exchange real ones that men drive in order to increase the size of their penises. Or so I’ve heard. Mine’s in the mail.
With adulthood comes a more complex intellectual life. Along the path to being grown up in the modern world, somehow we accumulate a multitude of sophisticated desires. How come we’re so hard to please?
To many expatriates living amongst foreign language speakers, this re-ascension to adulthood is something very real. It is a rewarding path, but it can be fraught with misunderstanding and frustration.
Imagine you were suddenly transformed into a cow in some kind of crazy parlour trick at a wizard’s dinner party. Assuming they didn’t throw your bovine, cud-chewing sirloin arse out right away, what would happen? As the evening continued, perhaps the conversation would turn to the current macro-economic climate. You start to get exited as this is a topic that you’re particularly interested in. After a while, the host passes a question your way.
Fantastic! This is just the moment you’ve been waiting to impress the heffer at the end of the table with those cute udders. Adopting the look of a bull (as opposed to a bear) with finance on his mind, you turn to the table, clear your throat and you prepare to knock the other guests dead with a stunning insight. Suddenly, a solitary, deafening ‘moo’ is emitted from your mouth that seems to resonate around the dinner hall for minutes. The guests sit stunned silence, then the conversation is directed – swiftly – away from the horned, cloven-hoofed animal that seems to be making an unsightly mess under his seat. Still, the evening wasn’t a complete disaster – at least you left the host something to help his rosebed along.
People need to express themselves and be understood by those around them. When we’re speaking another language, for longer than we can appreciate in the learning process, we can only show part of our personalities. And some times, a moo or an emission of methane isn’t quite enough.
But it’s not all bad. After time, one gets the hang of things and all of a sudden you’re making people laugh (not only at your mistakes), forging relations, learning about a new culture and a different way of seeing the world. Soon you have the best of both worlds – the ability to produce dairy products AND dinner party prowess. This is an immensely satisfying process, as a road fraught with difficulty – but progress, often is.
Por favor diz-me quem és tu, de novo?
Please tell me who are you, again?
The reality is that we’re all at different levels of ability in communicating, even in our own languages. Imagine conversation as two tennis players hitting a ball back and forth across a net. Some people, including a lot of adults, can barely hit a ball; while others seem to have an innate gift or at least an acquired skill of a pro. They can spin their verbal balls back and forth down the tram lines like a linguistic equivalent of Tim Henman – or someone better. Indeed, I wonder what the state of English tennis – according to this metaphor – says about the level of English conversation?
Language is only a tool for communication, but we assume that everyone is an expert at using it. We think that people are adept at saying what they mean, and we make great assumptions when we hear the words of others. However, we often don’t stop to think about – or even ask whether our interpretations are correct. The next time you feel your congested arteries taking another step towards the heart bypass operating theatre because of some offhand remark, ask the offending speaker, ‘What did you mean by that?’. If they confirm your interpretation, at least you will have some justification if you get the hump, pour a beer over their head – or invade their country.
What’s more, to add to the confounded confusion of it all, as if this world isn’t hard enough to navigate without having to learn how to emit all these funny sounds from our mouths, there’s more. Firstly, one often has to learn to look between words for what someone wants to say as they may not want to say it outright. A solitary ‘moo’ can mean a million things. An ‘I love you’ may be not be offered literally until it is too late. It is up to us to interpret these signals and look for meaning beyond what is actually said – between the words. Isn’t being grown up confusing?
E o meu olhar tem razões que o coração não frequenta
And my look has reasons that my heart doens’t attend
The next problem is that not everyone understands what they want to say, or indeed, why they they’re saying it. Thoughts and feelings can be hidden to ourselves so well that what lies beneath is obscured, even to the speaker. We often reflect on comments made large, aggressive-looking men with the tattoos on their eyeballs. Then we wonder why that particular message came out through our now, broken, teeth. We live under an illusion that we are in control of our words, but often that is not the case.
My final point is that I don’t want to leave you, dear reader, confused and hopeless. The next step on from this isn’t nihlism or even a sense of exasperation and frustration. I want you to realise that words and language are something wonderful, something miraculous, ever-evolving – and something that makes us the most unique beings on this planet. What comes out of your mouth every day at a rate of a few hundred words per minute is something really special.
But they’re not you.
They’re not him, or her, they’re not that woman on the telly or that bloke sat next to the bar all day. Words are just ideas humming like a swarm of mosquitoes around in our heads that transform into sounds connected together by grammar and abritrarily agreed meaning. And they are limited in their scope. Limited by the number of concepts they describe, limited by their construction, by the speaker and the audience. They don’t know what we want to say. We don’t even know what we want to say half the time. But we can shape them into something close.
E toda a verdade em ti é coisa incerta e tão vasta
And all the truth in you is something uncertain and so vast
Words can paint pictures as well as burn them. Words can enliven and shape the world around us as well as destroy it. Words can give us hope and joy, fear and pain. They can give us new tomorrows or make us forget about our yesterdays. Mould them into a melody and string them atop a piano or an electric guitar and they can create something next to godliness – or the next Eurovision failure. Words can change the world, they can stop and start wars. Learn how to use them. Learn to understand that not everyone can.
And ask yourself next time: ‘what does that person really want to say?’. Then maybe ask them. At least before you get the first punch in.
Jorge Palma – Quem És Tu De Novo? (Who are you, again?)
Translation by Tatiana. Thanks!
Quando a janela se fecha e se transforma num ovo
When the window closes and tranforms into an egg
Ou se desfaz em estilhaços de céu azul e magenta
Or it breaks into fragments of blue and magenta skies
E o meu olhar tem razões que o coração não frequenta
And my look has reasons that my heart doens’t attend
Por favor diz-me quem és tu, de novo?
Please tell me who are you, again?
Quando o teu cheiro me leva às esquinas do vislumbre
When your smell drives me to the corners of glimpse
E toda a verdade em ti é coisa incerta e tão vasta
And all the truth in you is somethins uncertain and so vast
Quem sou eu para negar que a tua presença me arrasta?
Who am I to deny that your presence drags me?
Quem és tu, na imensidão do deslumbre?
Who are you, in the greatness of dazzle?
As redes são passageiras, as arquitecturas da fuga
The nets are just passing by, the arquitectures of escape
De toda a água que corre, de todo o vento que passa
Of all the water that runs, of all the wind that passes
Quando uma teia se rasga ergo à lua a minha taça
When a spiderweb tears apart I rise my cup to the moon
E vejo nascer no espelho mais uma ruga
And see in the mirror another wrinkle being born
Quando o tecto se escancara e se confunde com a lua
When the ceiling opens wide and is confused with the moon
A apontar-me o caminho melhor do que qualquer estrela
Pointing out the way better than any star
Ninguém me faz duvidar que foste sempre a mais bela
Nobody makes me doubt the you were always the prettier one
Por favor, diz-me que és alguém, de novo?
Please tell me who is anyone, again?
