all tongues and brain

I was just thinking about how I liked that the expression “over and over” repeats “over” twice, instead of it being something like “multioverover”. How the words themselves reflected what they try to express. Which in turn reminded me of the book “1984”, which is the scariest thing I´ve ever read. The book that birthed the idea of Big Brother, about a society watched, and guarded, and controlled, in all the ways possible to imagine. There was a conversation in the book which described how the government intended to produce a new and revised dictionary which´s aim was to reduce human language as much as possible, to the most basic of words. Eradicating adjectives, expressions, synonyms, in order to contain not only the capability of speech, but of thought. Our capacity to form capable opinions, and the arguments to support these, would be cut down to what they gave us, and at the same time any rebel would be quick to catch because, necessarily, they would have to search for those absent syllables in order to find what was missing in that freedom deprived world. The very idea of it almost made me sicker than that scene in “American Psycho” in which he kills the beggar and dog, almost making me stop reading because it was so wrong, so wretched, and at the same time so real, with that dispassionate and aloof tone that Bret Easton Elis uses so well to describe desolate souls and nauseating actions. But I´m getting distracted again by my own course of though…again :). We can call it “scenic route writing”. (Ps. There´s a cat meowing non stop outside, with that kind of low tone that makes me think it´s stuck somewhere, possibly (judging by where the sound is coming from) the roof of the building opposite mine, which limits my cat-hero abilities considerably. Damn, where is a radioactive spider when you need it!?)

Back to point A. The whole idea of language being able to control us only highlighted how important it is to human kind, an idea I thought about a lot when having lectures related to language acquisition last year. They showed us studies, with subjects as young as fetuses and infants (by measuring how their sucking and heart rates altered when noticing changes in their environment, and so being able to see what changes they could actually perceive and, more interestingly, which changes they were most interested in, judging by how long the heart rate/sucking acceleration lasted.). These studies revealed our preference to complex sonorous stimuli, our categorical perception, which leads us to selective recognition of phonemes in any language to start off with, and then specialize in our own. We also studied how vulnerable the development of full language capabilities are to damage; how the scars that early trauma can cause in language development can be deep and ugly. Our brain needs nurture and time to settle fully in the intricacies of language- we have built networks around, with, the use of it. Even deaf children with speaking parents develop crude sign language (much like a “normal” baby sounds out different sounds before forming words) even if they don´t have specific models to copy, but instead simply out of an innate necessity to communicate.
From our fist breath, do we understand how important words are? The shape of our thoughts, the vessel of the meaning in our actions, our friendships, our need for clear declarations of love (or hate, or any other emotion).
Of course, I´m not saying that pictures can´t speak, or actions express. There are moments made for silence (that night made of thunder). And yet I can still taste how important words are, how, at times, necessary. I can lose myself in visions, and find myself in moments, but words are a search, a struggle, a means of release, art, beauty, and the energy they create is necessary for my existence. Some days they are what let me breathe…
I think about that study in which keeping a diary lead to a lighter soul. About that paper suggesting Schizophrenia might be the price we pay for what language puts our brain through…

Wow, I really didn´t mean to go on about the whole psychology thing so long. I just meant to breeze over a few points, but that just came rushing out. Glad I remember so much of it though, considering how shitty my memory is!

Jesus, I can´t believe I´m awake. I know I´m repeating myself, but there really is something about nighttime that does something to me. For the last three days I´ve been completely exhausted for practically the whole day, due to my change in placement location, which, due to the commute (walking + train = 1.4 hours one way) I have to wake up at six which, if you know me, is seriously not something that comes natural to my being. Therefore, in theory, when nighttime comes I should jump into bed with a whoop of relief and fall asleep as my head hits the pillow. Instead, however, I force myself to bed at 10 30 (ok, with my laptop to watch one episode of internet TV, but as the Softer World author says, “Whenever people judge me for how much of my time I spend watching TV and horror movies I wonder if they've ever even been happy ever. EVER”) and, tossing and turning and sleeping horribly I may clonk out way past twelve because it´s like my body just can´t accept that it´s sleeping the whole night through instead of, you know, a bit of night and most of the morning. And, therefore, even though, being 5.05 am, I´ve been awake almost 24 hours, I am still writing. Definitely editing and posting this the day after tomorrow, on Saturday.

Which is my cue to leave, even though blog post madness has hit me hard. (Haha, that reminds me about the paper I read today about addiction to social networks. Maybe that can be the sequel. The Social Network: The Addiction. Muahaha, first step to getting rich, fast: Be Me :P)
And with that overgrown parenthesis filled with typical Marina nonsense, I´m off to...I would say sleep but why would I lie? Listening to music and staring into space it is.
Phantogram: When I´m Small, and then maybe a little bit of Massive Attack: Paradise Circus...then I´m smelling some Beck: Everybody´s gotta learn sometime, coming my way. Then to finish on a high note, Wax Tailor: Que Sera, and for a low note, Tim Buckley: Song to the Siren. Actually, I think I´ll start with that and work my way up.
Join me :)