所有的記憶都是潮濕的*
(All memories are traces of tears)
Even if this quote comes only from a film, I’d like to include it in my favourites Chinese fortunes, since it describes one of the strongest truths of life.
Indeed, no one was ever born without crying, as soon as oxygen got into his lungs. No one ever died without regrets.
Perhaps it is a bit extremist to say that every memory we have is sad, but it is not far from the truth. Tears make up most part of our lives, the part spared by boredom, while happiness is just a solitary flower in a frozen field. There is no such a question as whether life is beautiful or cruel, but whether the moments of happiness are worth carrying on.
Personally I think the good spikes justify survival, but the advantage is very small and it is quite easy to pass the border. Thus the scorn for those who chose that way is not justifiable.
Just to show the other face of the medal I give you a futher link on the theme of the nice guys, dedicated to all those auto-proclaimed nice guys that have no real reason to hate or despise women:
Anti-ode to the nice guys
The abuse of language is one of the aspects of human communication that displeases me more.
Most languages have synonyms that have already lost every difference in the sense, beyond phonetic aspects. Obviously most people use the language at the very basic level, so they cannot be blamed for flattening the language. The ones to blame are the compilers of dictionaries that don’t bring enough attention to the differences between words.
On the other hand we have the “abuse of language”. Many words became in the years to mean everything and nothing, and often the meanings have little to do with the real word. It’s the case of the word love for example, the in these days means more mating than loving. As for myself I think I will return to use the Greek words and .
Another interesting phenomenon is the shift of meaning between a chain of words as we have in the French verbs embracer (’to hug’, shifted into ‘to kiss’) and baiser (’to kiss’, shifted into ‘to have a sexual intercourse’). I still don’t know how to say to hug in French without implying the shifted meaning.
I would be quite interested to create a language that minimize such abuses and is wealth enough in meanings to allow poets to write poems. I am not sure though that this is possible, but I’ll try. I don’t mind if the number of speakers will be as little as that of the Zoinx and Blabo languages invented by my colleagues Apo and DH.
“I think they’re looking for something worth dying for, because it’s easier than finding something worth living for.” (Michael Garibaldi from Babylon 5)
I think I also should find something worth living for, dying it’s just too easy. But since glory, richness, poetry, love are but illusions, I’ll stand to the life for life’s sake concept, until I’ll find something better. Anyway I already study mathematic for mathematics’ sake.
Je viens de pondre encore un autre stupide Curriculum Vitæ et m’apercevoir ainsi que tous les idéaux pour lesquels on s’est battu dans notre vie, les instants pendant lesquels on s’est considérés heureux n’ont aucune signification. De nous ne restera qu’une page avec plus ou moins de faillites ou d’événements.
Je me rend bien compte qu’un CV n’est pas notre vie, qu’il pourrait y avoir quelque chose de non matériel dans notre existence, mais il en est une bonne approximation, bien plus proche de la vérité que le soit l’ensemble de vos idéaux. Beaucoup parmi les petits joueurs de cette tragédie-comédie titrée La vie de l’homme et sa beauté m’envieraient mon CV, mais si par quelque miracle ils pouvaient l’obtenir ils le regretteraient bien tôt.
Je vous laisse remplir votre résumé de la vie, pour que vous puissiez en découvrir la vacuité et inutilité. Je ne crois guère d’exagérer si je ne cesse jamais de répéter que la vie est une maladie.
A y bien réfléchir ce n’est pas absurde que ce soit comme ça. Votre système d’exploitation Windows, si vous voulez une comparaison informatique, est lui-même un virus et le mieux caché parmi les virus. Ainsi la vie est la mieux cachée des maladies, si qu’elle semble être une valeur fondamentale.
Je cherche encore quelqu’un qui ait attrapé la version bénigne de ce cancer, mais je ne suis pas sur d’en connaître. Si je vous dit que chaque faute qui vous faites ne vous sera jamais remise, considérez-vous encore possible d’améliorer cette existence ?
I admit I know quite a bunch of languages (I think I could name 5 of them without the fear of exaggerating in my skills in that particular language). However Murphy’s law always finds a way to show me it is not even merely enough.
As a matter of fact I plan or rather hope to go to the Netherlands for work related reasons. And obviously I don’t know Dutch. It is not the first time it happens: three years ago I had to learn French to continue my studies and in order to go live in Italy some 15 years ago I had to know Italian.
This time I am optimistic and I don’t consider it a tragedy. Let me say that I never fell in love with a girl and declared my love twice using the same language. It seams that there are much more human idioms that girls worth meeting. This gives as a upper bound of about 1 girl I could fall in love with in 500,000 females of Homo sapiens sapiens, which takes into account also babies and old ladies that surely don’t match my ideal of partner. Continuing this stupid series of calculations my beloved Paris carries 6 of such creatures in the inner ring. I think it’s useless to say that I never met one and I am not in the mood to look for them.
I don’t think Dutch will cause any problem, the problem is always English. This stupid test which assume you lose the ability to speak the language after two years and only provides profits to the country I hate the most, will always persecute me. I start learning English about 16 years ago and, I don’t know how, I am still able to talk and write it. Let hell curse American.
Update: This post reminds me a joke in Polish about policemen I’ll translate:
A man arrives in Warsaw, gets lost and asks two policemen for directions:
«Do you speak English?»— he asks.
«No»—answer a policemen.
«Parlez-vous français ?»
«No»
«Parlate italiano?»
«No»
«¿Hablas español?»
«No»
«
«No»
«Sprechen Sie Deutsch?»
«No»
«Spreekt u Nederlands?»
«No»
«»
«No»
The man goes away desperate. One policemen says to the other:
«You know, we should learn some foreign language.»
«What for? He knew 8 and it didn’t help him.»
Some of the expressions above were supplied by Wikitravel. Wikitravel, take it with you wherever you travel.
