Life of Pride
I feel summer laziness setting in. This particular form of sloth does not involve actually sitting around doing nothing, which is how most people would define laziness. It means that, rather, I ignore all my sharply-defined goals and set new ones specifically summer-related, telling myself I'll do the other things "later." Such as:
(1) Enter and win the Ayn Rand essay contest, meaning that first I must read Atlas Shrugged.
(2) Program an elegant and detailed website for my Civil Air Patrol squadron.
I think the problem is that I give myself too much to do. If only I kept it reasonable, there would be no stress. For example, I took out eight books on Atlantis from the library for research for Erthe. Two or three would have done, no doubt. Why did I need eight? So I would never finish them all, and so that I would feel like a failure no matter what!
"But if you don't read them, you won't
know everything about it. You won't be an expert," whines one part of my brain.
Oh, put a sock in it! Nobody will know the difference!
"But what if someone asks you a question about Atlantis sometime when you are rich and famous and talking about your book, and you don't know?"
They can look it up themselves. It's probably all fiction anyway.
"But what if it's not? What if Atlantis really did exist, and it is integral to your understanding of how people spread after the Tower of Babel?"
Even if it did, it probably isn't. It's a cool factoid, but I should probably learn what
did happen before I worry about what might have.
You see what I put myself through? I feel much better now, however. Perhaps I should buy myself a nice couch and psychoanalyze regularly.
Today I would like to comment about the Greek language. Mark Twain wrote a lovely
essay on the topic that I cannot possibly match, but then indeed, I don't want to even start on the grammar. That would take pages. I merely want to comment on the pronunciation.
For one thing, the Germans have created an oddly-shaped letter I cannot represent here to make the sound "ss." They still have the letter S, however, which makes a sound like "zzz." That's not all. They also have the letter Z. which sounds like "tz."
Also in the German language, the letter W sounds like "vvvv." No problem, except the letter V also sounds like "vvvv," or "ffff," depending on the circumstances. The R, however, is my favorite letter. It begins in the very back of throat, sounding very much like a cat snarling, and travels up the tongue. In a word like 'Das Quadrat,' which means "the square," the R then impacts with the front top teeth and struggles there for just the slightest instant before it emerges. If you get it wrong, it sounds like you are choking.
The vowels do funky things too. An A in the word 'tragt' for example, makes a perfectly reasonable "ah" sound. In the plural 'tragen,' however, the A gains two inexplicable little dots above it. Then it makes an "eh" sound. "Tregen."
Actually, I could be wrong about that. Perhaps it is a different word. Perhaps it is still "trahhhgen." I've been learning less than a week, so it is possible I may be mixed up.
But I digress. All the vowels seem to do this. A fairly normal O that is making an "oh" sound turns to "ooo," for example. And then you put them into combination. Just when you've learned one weird diphthong, it becomes something even stranger with the mere addition of a squiggle of some sort above it.
I could continue, but I have no doubt I'll find more things to comment about as time progresses. At the very least, it helps me think about the language, and perhaps therefore also learn it.
How is my summer going? Swimmingly, one might say.
At least, one might say that this Saturday when the neighborhood pool opens. I can't wait; swimming is one of the true joys of life, associated in my mind with all that is good from as far back as I can remember. Open expanses of clear water smile at me benignly, and I at them. I know what to do when I am inside a pool, perhaps more than I do when on solid ground.
Meanwhile, I'm working 6-8 hours a day for my parents. See, this one book project of my mom's never seems to go away. She finishes it, then shortly she is working on the next update. It is a tremendous mound of work each time. I can hardly imagine my life without this project of my mom's hanging over it. It's a tremendous relief never having to worry about a job, however. It's there, continually waiting to suck me in at $10/hr.
My mother informed me day before yesterday that I will definitely have to pay for my fourth year of college entirely by myself, what with six siblings behind me in line. A guaranteed job removes a lot of the stress on that account. What she said in addition, however, raises the tension level quite a bit.
"If you don't manage to save all the money," she said, "the worst that can happen is that you will take a year off and work for us to earn money. A year... or two."
A year... or two... working this patch of soil in exactly the same way I've done since I was 14. In this same town, with the same people I've lived among all my life - people who do not respect, but do tolerate, my family.
I can't explain my family. We live in a space cramped (yes, that is the right word) full of computers, books, kids, mess and noise. Siblings talk in fake English accents, and flash between several movie references in a single sentence. It's amazing how easily I slip back into this, like a loose piece of a jigsaw puzzle long gone missing, but triumphantly found, rather dusty, in the far corner. I feel about 12 years old.
I'm feeling deep and rich and purple today. I could sprinkle out a few pieces of brightly-colored confetti as normal, or I could write some of the things that are moving me deeply.
First, my writing. I know some of it is quite good - for what it is. I'm a very objective person, and my writing reflects that a lot of the time. One of my best friends told me that my writing doesn't have much
passion, that I haven't yet found what I want to write. I thought she was wrong at the time, and in fact, if I'm being truthful with myself, I still do now. I
care about my writing. Still, that one comment was enough to introduce doubt into my peaceful certainty that what I'm doing is
right.
It's strange how this particular friend's comments tend to do that. She says things that hold a particle of truth, perhaps, but that read far too much into the particle. Thus the confusion: I don't know whether what she says is completely right or not.
Still, I know God made me to write. I can do it, and countless people can't. This is a gift I absolutely have to use. There is no way around it. If I stopped writing, I think all the moisture would pull out of my flesh and leave me a stiff, desiccated corpse. Or rather, perhaps all the moisture would pull out of the world around me, and I would watch its grey remains with old and tired eyes.
On the other hand, the particle of truth in what my friend said is that I am young. The core of solid truth inside me is extending tendrils into every part of the world I know, but honestly I know very little. If I don't keep writing now, however, the core of truth will grow bigger and bigger, but the tendrils will stop extending. I communicate everything
real through writing, since I wasn't gifted with an extraordinary ability to speak. I speak silently.
What is this private burning inside me that looks at the world and heaves to speak and to say, "It's so obvious you're not happy! Why do you persist this way?" Why is it that I must cry when something is beautiful and I know that it is beautiful and why it is so - but I know that millions will never know, and that I am too small to help them, but that
they must be helped? I don't matter. The truth matters. What makes me think I can communicate truth?
As for the other items that I'm rolling over and over in my head - some things can only be discussed in a
private journal.
The name of the world I'm writing this summer has changed, for purely pragmatic reasons. I had called it "Orbis" before, but I went to register domain names yesterday (you know, for when my book is popular worldwide) :D, and orbis.com, orbis.net and orbis.org were all taken. So now, after trying different combinations, my world is called "Erthe." erthe.net and erthe.org were available.
I like this name better anyway, because my world is in the same space as Earth, really. You just can't see it. It sorta makes sense that it would have a name similar to "Earth" then, doesn't it? Further, I'm picturing glossy books with the title "Erthe." It just looks better and more intriguing than "Orbis."
Heh, I know I'm getting ahead of myself. It's possible, however, and it never hurts to look ahead. Besides, I wrote almost three entire pages of the thing this morning. :D If I write only six pages a week all summer long, I'll have more than 70 pages at the end of it. That's a good start.
I'm also learning German this summer. I figure if I spend an hour an evening studying German, I'll know
something of the language by August. We'll see how it goes.
A brand-new morning of life, in a brand-new summer, and I'm sore. Last night I had a
killer Tae Kwon Do class. I haven't done TKD for nine months, and though I possess a hard-earned black belt, last night I felt like something around a green belt. I felt slightly crippled. What I would do, I could not, and what I would not do, I did. I have my work cut out for me this summer, as I lose at least 10 pounds.
I have also forgotten most of my poomse (TKD forms/choreographed moves in sequence). This becomes my first priority, because my dojang (TKD school) is hosting a tournament on June 12th, and I would like to be able to compete in at least poomse. I am nowhere near at my old level of sharpness, however, and I have to move slower and wrap my knees, because they've been aching for the past month or so.
College. It destroys a person's health, I tell you.
Guess what? The tired college student did survive! I am now at home, after a long road trip all of yesterday, and I am contemplating the summer ahead. Looks good.
I have two goals for the summer. I would like to create a world, and I want to learn German. Actually, I want to start learning Akkadian cuneiform too, but I get the idea that the latter may take a while. It might be nice to get a foot up before graduate school, however.
Let me expand "creating a world," however. I sort of am, and sort of am not. I feel more like I'm synthesizing it from everything I've ever read, and tossing a few bits of myself into the mix.
What is gravity anyway? We don't know; we barely have a grasp on how it works. Suppose it were alive. Suppose we each had our own personal gravity, attached to our feet and living under the surface of the Earth. Suppose that Earth's gravity were only asleep. What then?
It is awfully fun to create one's own world. Mine is called "Orbis." Latin is a wonderful language.
