Government Shut Down:The Home Version

Language is at the very edge of what we know.

I was thinking about forbidden words and euphemisms, and how these are debated and scorned.

How do we learn, as if hurrying at once to the same page, to find the line of a shared political vernacular?

I refer to cultural “linguistics” -cultural values of language: what is considered acceptable to some, objectionable to others, proscribed, and so in a weird reversal, promulgated.

Rather than reacting, it is interesting just to be very aware of where some draw the line- it’s an outer barrier, and limits insight.

I think of the probing of one of those deep-diving, remotely operated submarines with the tiny porthole and a thin beam of light. Meager. Insufficient. Almost hopeless in the darkness.

Language is illuminating; it alllows us to see in the dark, to navigate.

How limited we are! In a vast space which is the unspeakable, the unknowable.

I think of the loud political disputes and realize probably a kind of poetry is our only way out of the mess we’re in.

I think of the terrible language assault on the LGBTQ+ community. The language assault has its own dynamic. Violence is a language of limitation.

If we look closely at the language objectively, it is a map showing where we are as a country.

We can decide to make a change regarding human rights. As a country. In an official capacity. As a Nation.

Substitute for the language of hate and fear the language of service.

When in doubt, be of service. Service as offering, as opportunity, opens a space, unlocks a door. Shut down, or advance?

etymonline:

advance (v.)
mid-13c., avauncen (transitive), “improve (something), further the development of,” from Old French avancir, avancier “move forward, go forward, set forward” (12c., Modern French avancer), from Vulgar Latin *abanteare (source of Italian avanzare, Spanish avanzar). This is from Late Latin abante “from before,” composed of ab “from” (see ab-) + ante “before, in front of, against” (from PIE root *ant- “front, forehead”)

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Government Shut Down, The Home Version

Now I am able to look back at the last century as if it were the last century- and it was.

A talking wristwatch?

Nevermind the inventions. We’ve learned so much about human nature, have we not, by scratching the surface of disputes like a persistent itch, and daily facing the consequences of the common, base language of our politics.

It’s deep, what we’re living through. A crisis without definition is a mundane struggle to survive. Intelligence without analysis is propaganda.

The plan, the constitution, the frame of government, was always to do better, not worse- if only slightly; to preserve some powers and to allow others to contend for a freehold and basic necessities.

We are at a fascinating turning point. I realize we can see well into the mire and there is a path out, if we take it. Before us not one footprint, and that is the great adventure.

This might all be worth it. Without Shakespeare we find ourselves stuck in the play, and yet, at this moment, our main characters are out of options. We write the next act.

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