3P Random Reflections Blog

Language is incredibly powerful. It's deeply imbedded in my psyche. It REFLECTS how I see and experience the world, while it also SHAPES it.

I've been thinking about language... how I use it, what that use tells me about my limiting views of the world, and what messages those words tend to communicate to others.

The language of "my car"... perhaps shows and creates a sense of ownership, dominion, identity, control, entitlement, pride.

How different would the relationship and experience be if I had a way or habit of feeling and expressing... "the car for which many resources have been used to create, and for which many people have worked to create, and for which I am now responsible to use and care for"?

The language of "cut it down"... perhaps shows and creates a living tree being reduced to an "it", instead of something alive and connected, unlike the significance I would more intuitively give to a "he" or a "she" or a "them".

How different would the relationship and experience be if I had a way or habit of feeling and expressing... "the tree that gives me shade and beauty and oxygen, that has my respect and care, and from whom I have asked permission to use her gifts"?

The language of "the homeless"... perhaps shows and creates an image of suffering and judgment and limitation, pointing vividly to the conditions instead of the whole of the person.

How different would the relationship and the experience be if I had a way or habit of feeling and expressing... "the beautiful and unique human being having experiences of homelessness"?

The language of "I am or you are (fill in the blank here)"... perhaps shows and creates a permanent, significant, intrinsic identity.

How different would the relationship and the experience be if I had a way of never saying "I am" or "you are" anything, and simply spoke to what is happening... "procrastination is happening", "judgment is happening", "joy is happening", "laughter is happening", "lawyering is happening", "farming is happening", "student-ing is happening"?

The language of "we"... perhaps shows and creates a sense of assumption and entitlement, often speaking for others without awareness of projecting my own experience onto them.

How different would the relationship and the experience be if I had a way of speaking mostly with "I" instead of "we"?

LIFE is inherently infinite, miraculous, incomprehensible, and in constant change and flow... and yet it seems that the English language and culture I live in rarely reflects it... except perhaps in poetry.

The English language and culture does offer momentary labels that appear to help me to navigate life, but it also often negates life's truest deeper nature in the process.

I don't expect that the daily English language and culture around and within me is going to evolve anytime soon, to more generously reflect the infinite, miraculous, incomprehensible, ever-flowing nature of all of life, but wouldn't it be lovely if it did?

In the meantime, I can, when inspiration occurs, choose to speak my words with the care and reverence and love that they most wish to express... for just like all of life, words are alive too.

With Love and Laughter,

Jonelle

(Photo by Ravi Kant)

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