I’ve been on vacation for the last 3 days in Miami. Since this is where I grew up, it’s a strange place to take a “vacation” – but rather than get away from it all I’ve always been one to get in the middle of it. I was tagging along with my partner Cristy who went to a conference, meaning the hotel part was taken care of. It gave me a chance to research my novel a bit and see just what has changed.
Little has changed. It’s about what I remember.
The train between concourses in Atlanta Hartsfield airport is full of the heat, sweat, and silence any traveler comes to expect. There are three electric signs explaining the situation – one in English, one rolling between French, German, and Spanish, and the last one the more artful display of Arabic, Japanese, and Korean. Whichever one made the most sense to any particular traveler was unclear as we all kept our language to ourselves. Certainly, for many of them, English would have been enough – and not just because we were at the portal to Atlanta. To many people around the world, the language of the new globalization is the youngest one of all.
It’s just a word. That’s the main thrust of many of the comments on my last blog entry, several e-mails, and a lot of tweets. The other side of the same argument is that words can be very powerful, so what’s the point in using that power to scare people? If we call it a Depression, a Recession, or a Banana it doesn’t really make any difference except the potential for panic. Why do I want people to panic?
Just as the power of words leads many people to think we might as well avoid the incendiary word, taking away its power, the goal of using the word Depression for me is to actually avoid panic. I want to confront this thing head on.
Words shape the way we see the world around us. We are a social animal that relies on discussion and interpretation to understand what we see, figuring things out in a kind of committee. Our thoughts are often in language, a Jungian dialogue between our outer and inner selves. There is a rich meaning beyond the simple names that make up our lives like “house” or “car” or “spaghettios”. When events overtake us we need words that describe them such as “Depression” – the alternative is anxiety. Yet choosing the right word with the right color is tricky.
Unity means a lot of things to different people operating in different circumstances. Among people of different backgrounds or beliefs, Unity means that they are reaching beyond their normal lives to act as one. The political system in the USofA is based on the idea that entire political systems are stronger when they come together to form a larger unity. Unity in writing, however, is a bit more subtle. It describes that which ties everything together into one whole so that it can be digested by the human mind. It doesn’t have to agree with itself completely, but when it works well the conflicts can be understood easily.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 