fall

i heard once that nothing breaks your spirit like poverty. but i think there is something.

failure.

isn't that at the root of all things? whether you fail because you are incapable, whether you are lazy, whether the rest of your life interfered and you couldn't pursue this one thing. whether you are just tired.

its knowing that you've worked hard on something and then having it all go to waste. all that time wasted, all that work wasted because we only have so much time to spend and so much work to give.

i set myself up to be a renaissance woman--a woman who could do it all: be intellectual, musical, able to speak multiple languages. but it doesn't come so easily to me. it may for others. i have a hunger in me that i can't seem to satisfy. i want to be it all, do it all. but i just can't. these aren't standards i take from those around me, from my generation or social class. i want to be all these things for myself, to be able to say that i have done, can do, will do all these things. just for me, for my own pride. to live a full life and not ignorant. but from where i stand, all i seem able to do is look at others around me and envy them. envy them their knowledge of multiple languages, their ability to play the cello, their understanding of Nietzsche. their sterling to my dull brass. the only thing i feel i can really be proud of, that people can envy me for, is what i can do with the things i have been given.

what i can do with the language i was born into.

i wanted to learn french so that i could communicate in another language. i have a patchy understanding of it after two years, but as i have decided to give up any further pursuit of it, it will probably remain patchy and even regress. now i am taking two english classes on African literature. and the discourses i have vaguely heard for the past seven years has come to a head and now resounds loudly in my ears.

the english language is nothing compared to german, to french, to coptic, to spanish. german has its rhetoric, french its philosophy, spanish its romance. they keep saying that english is the language of the colonizers that the english language was one of the oppressions put upon colonized people. that it represents capitalism and corruption and hegemony. and english speakers are resented for the fact that our language is hegemonic, that other countries must learn english in order to operate with the strongest of nations. it threatens the nationalism of other countries, it threatens the existence of dying languages such as coptic and irish and basque, etc. that writing in english is like throwing mud at a wall. it is an ugly language. inferior.

and what about Shakespeare? Milton? are they hated so because they are so well-known? do people turn against the english literary canon because it is english?

all i see is people turning against english because of how it has been used, what it represents. eveyone--as i have said before--everyone wants to root for the underdog and in the linguistic world, the underdog is every other language but english. even english-speakers criticize it, wishing that they were born speaking hindi or french or some other language that is considered more beautiful. the grass is always greener on the other side.

but i choose to embrace it. i was born into english, even though my parents were born speaking something else. i write in english not because it has a greater audience, not because it is a language of power, not because it is the only language i know how to communicate in. i write in english because i think it is beautiful. i think that it can accomplish as much rhetoric, as much gracefulness and subtlety and nuance as any other language. if you could only see what could be done with it. forget that it is the language of business and capitalism and colonialism. it is also the language of literature, truly incredible literature. and i know, i am learning, that other languages have literature that is superior, that is beautiful. but those languages are not my language. i will read them in translation. and if in translation i see that the language works in ways that i want to master, i will pursue that language. but my heart is with english. i wish that other english speakers who are embarassed of it, disgusted with it, would have more faith. i wish that people around the world would not think of what it represents, but what it has the potential of representing. what it has represented before in our literary canon.

vous aimez bien votre langue, quoi que langue vous parlez. c'est la langue de votre esprit et on ne doit pas l'abattre.