I love English

In these days of globalization it would certainly be more original to have Sanskrit or Navaho as a passion but I'm saddled with ever so ordinary English... Though it is not that ordinary at all actually. There is something in that language that just happens to correspond to my preferences, I cannot exactly say what - there is no explaining these things. Of course, it is the language of Shakespeare, but potentially (and in fact) any language has the reach for universality - though not in identical ways, and there is something in the variety and the very suppleness of English that speaks to me. It is a very liberal language I would argue: rational but not mechanically logical, pragmatically open to all sorts of influences - being a mongrel in so many ways (and it appears that there were seeds for strange transformations even regardless of the Normans).

I have great respect and liking for my native Finnish: a dark, emotional, radically non-Western language - there is much beauty and passion in its heaviness and lovely, vowel rich cadences. Still, strangely, it is literature, especially poetry in English that has moved me most. In comparison with Finnish, English is more intellectual, in some ways more shallow actually - English has been used so much that it has become worn, an overly smooth language if not used originally and imaginatively. There are countless of pop and rock songs in English that say absolutely nothing in a way that simply would not be possible in Finnish: you just have to say something in Finnish. But when used properly English is the loveliest of languages.

(This post arose from the pleasure of listening to Stephen Fry talking in heavenly literate English.)

Surprised by innocence

Commenting on Wes Anderson's film Michael Chabon says this about childhood:

The world is so big, so complicated, so replete with marvels and surprises that it takes years for most people to begin to notice that it is, also, irretrievably broken. We call this period of research “childhood.”

There follows a program of renewed inquiry, often involuntary, into the nature and effects of mortality, entropy, heartbreak, violence, failure, cowardice, duplicity, cruelty, and grief; the researcher learns their histories, and their bitter lessons, by heart. Along the way, he or she discovers that the world has been broken for as long as anyone can remember, and struggles to reconcile this fact with the ache of cosmic nostalgia that arises, from time to time, in the researcher’s heart: an intimation of vanished glory, of lost wholeness, a memory of the world unbroken. We call the moment at which this ache first arises “adolescence.” The feeling haunts people all their lives.

A beautiful description. I honestly thought, not being a child person at all, that I would be with Virginia Woolf: waiting for intelligent conversation, patiently enduring the preceding years of silliness. Having had a rather dark childhood in some ways, I certainly did not sport any dewy eyed illusions either about any inherent goodness and gentleness in children.

Well, I guess I did not know small children so well - and I didn't. Sure, there are plenty of signs of non-gentleness and non-goodness there, of possibilities to come, no perfect innocence anywhere. But so much innocence, so much vulnerability and generosity. So much so, that having them growing up into this world, to harden up enough to survive in this world, to develope enough cynicism and self-protection to endure this world, does make the prospect of intelligent conversation to appear in rather less glamorous light.

I just didn't know small children that well. Of course, this is what it takes, currently and so far, to live, to develope into awareness and responsibility. We can have a rough coming of it or somewhat less rough or very rough, but there are no easy ways into personhood: we lose many things of much value on the way, and often have to patiently relearn back into habit of trust, love and generosity.