Tuesday, November 18, 2014

ما مشي الحال

One of the advantages of being multi-lingual multi-dialect is that one is rarely stuck for a word to express oneself and one's feelings.. I find Arabic a highly flowery/pretentious/heavy language at times so I avoid it when expressing myself in writing, I feel fake sometimes if I do. English is analytical, like me and my thinking, it is clear and direct. The first thing they taught me in my American liberal arts education is to forget what I had learned at school in writing. It is about quality not quantity. MH later at work told me another simple rule; take every complicated difficult word and replace it with a simpler one, until you no longer can. Omit repetitions. Core ideas only.. pure, filtered, stripped raw.

Mapping and differences between languages and semantics amuses me a lot. In English, we say "I miss you", it is about me and about the feeling *I* am feeling. In French, however, it is about the other: "Tu me manques". It is YOU who is missing to me. There is a lack of "you", and "I" am just an indirect object here.

There is an expression used a lot in Lebanese (and Levantine) dialects.. "ما مشي الحال".. It means it did not work out, but it says it in a passive, resigned tone that doesn't let on the reason things did not work, whether it is you, others, or just fate.

So how is your new start-up?
ما مشي الحال

Weren't you getting engaged to that guy?
ما مشي الحال

How is that diet going?
ما مشي الحال

The French also have a similar expression when you ask someone how they're doing, "ça marche" they say. "Ca marche", "it goes", not great, not bad.. Just life as we know it.

So, ça marche, until one day it does not.

Monday, November 10, 2014

the spectacle

It is interesting this spectacle, but I'm tired. I have always been a wallflower, and I never seemed to mind it at first, then I did, then I went back to not minding. I have the advantage of watching, observing, assessing. But I am cursed with a goldfish memory for bad things. They say a person will forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel. Well, I tend to forget both, and in my head, my memories are woven together like incoherent fairy tales, or surreal dreams.

For as long as I remember, I have been observing myself and others. One of my clearest earliest memories was when I was not more than 3, my older brother (19 or 20 at the time) asked me why I talk so much. We were in his dark grey Fiat Ritmo. And I remember very clearly that I said "I am the mother of all speech" (مامة الكلام كله). I find that funny, amusing, insightful now. And I think he is foolish for not seeing it at the time, or now. I do believe in words and in thoughts, maybe more than actions sometimes. I love words and how we can play with them like little play-dough, and I feel sad for those who do not express themselves as freely or as expressively..

I have been reading a lot on personal interaction, validating the other's feelings, and I realized that between intention & impact I am lost. I reached an epiphany. I say what I mean, but I do not say what I feel, or what I need you to feel through me... my words are wasted... I should follow the earlier advice then: replace every difficult word with an easy one, read it from the other's point of view, and then feel the impact, not the intention.