Linguistic Love

I am quite sick of the misuse of words that should only be used in almost entirely unique situations.

The word 'hate' gets thrown around a lot these days. A quick search of my blog did not reveal many uses of the word but I am well aware of how much I overuse while speaking. "I hate that drink", "I hate those jeans" and other ridiculous uses of the word have completely undermined the power of the word. It gets to the point where I have to use qualifiers like 'absolutely hate' and 'thoroughly hate' to emphasise my feelings.

The word 'love' follows similar patterns. Again, looking back through this blog I have not fallen back on the word too frequently, except in relation to music. Indeed, it is one word that I concentrate quite strongly on avoiding. For many of my friends, on any drunken night out the word will be thrown around with reckless abandon, expecting it to be used again in response. I have mostly managed to evade this as I am very conscious of not diluting a word that should stand for an absolute purity of feeling.

When these words are over-used they become practically meaningless. If someone tells me that they love me what on earth am I supposed to take that to mean anymore? If you say that word and subsequently experience something stronger how do you express it? By taking away this expressive capability can you even understand your own feelings? I will most likely be faced with the drunken 'L' word a lot this week and I do not know how to deal with it.

I hope that I can be honest while retaining a remnant of linguistic integrity.

-The English Student

Fury

For the first time in my active memory, I became completely furious over this week.

Sure, I can get angry at times. This is especially likely to happen when in work and assaulted by a barrage of stupidity. These fits of anger are just that, flashes of rage that bubble across the surface. Like everyone, I have learned a good deal of control over this and can generally smother the anger before I do something stupid like lashing out.

The anger I felt over the week was of a completely different nature. It was a fury that was very slowly building inside me as the slow realisation of a situation was dawning on me. I could feel it rising as something unstoppable that needed release. It did not help that this situation was entirely my own fault and that this rage was directed at myself.

Thankfully I did not do anything completely stupid. I almost broke a phone and did have to take seriously deep breaths to gain a modicum of calm. In the end though, I managed to harness this fury and learn something positive from the situation. If there is something wrong and I have the power to do something, I will resolutely pursuit these options to their end, without rest. My rage spurned me on and forced me to action.

In the future, I must continue to force it to bend to my will.

-Then English Student

Pointless Controversy

Thankfully, Reverend Terry Jones (importantly not the same person as the legendary comedian and all around nice guy Terry Jones) has backed down from his plan to burn the Qu'ran.

Freedom is an iconic symbol of the USA. It is cemented into the mindset of the population, regardless of whether or not this freedom actually exists. I am guessing that this is the reason why there is such controversy over Terry Jones' now defunct plan to burn the Qu'ran on the anniversary of the September the 11th terrorist attack. After all, is it not the right of an American citizen to say whatever they want, do whatever they want and express whatever they feel?

If you want to create an anti-Islamic protest on the anniversary of a terrorist attack well that is the right of a free citizen, despite how astonishingly insensitive it is to both individual victims that have suffered and religions that have been blamed and suffered. It is very important to note the position of the United States government at this point. At no stage was the reverend threatened with arrest or censor for his actions. He would have been within his legal rights to burn the Qu'ran.

He would not, however, have been within his rights as a human being had he carried out his plan. The law may say it is alright to burn a sacred text, but why would you? Sarah Palin has likened the issue to that of the Islamic prayer centre that is due to be installed in New York city. I wonder how she could possibly have missed the very basic difference between these two acts. The building of a prayer centre is designed to foster understanding and repair bridges, the burning of the Qu'ran is an act of antagonism. One is constructive, the other is deeply destructive.

There is a difference between law and morality. The truly ignorant are those who choose to do everything they can within the law and claim that they are acting morally.

-The English Student

Consuming Consumption

Why do we try to get products and commodities physically inside of ourselves?

I have been mulling this idea over for a little while now and the more I think about it the more examples come to mind. When is the last time that you physically hugged an inanimate product? I have done it recently to a much-treasured new item that I bought and it did not strike me as strange. Absolutely, I was doing it mostly in jest to show people how much I appreciated the product: I hardly believed it was a real item. But the very manner of that hug is striking. Products do not actually get mentally or spiritually closer to you with a hug, as might happen with another living being. Instead, they just get closer to physically being inside you.

Another example is a common trope in narrative and also one that I noticed just last night. Instead of trying to 'ingest' commodities, we do the same thing with the money we would use to buy them. A friend of my jokingly kissed a coin last night, some celebrities are said to sleep in piles of money, while the influential Scrooge McDuck swam in it. If we were presented with a bowl of currency and spoon would we delve into it with relish?

Perhaps all of this is just a pose. It is possibly something that we do playfully and in the process, highlight the inanimate nature of the objects through the contrast with conscious beings. There does however seem to be something slightly more sinister in the pattern. It seems that to an extent, we apply sexual desire to commodities in order to prolong our ownership of them. In the same way that we continue our genes, we also continue our possession.

As usual this is just conjecture, yet I will embrace commodities with far more reserve in future.

-The English Student