Carving out a window

Not a rock-shattering manifesto, but a periodic crystallisation. / Here, the stream of consciousness bubbles up into an eddy, a sporadic focus point. / In the house of my mind, I carve out another window of a certain shape and build, through which I may see into the world, and through which the world might look back at me.

The framing du jour says: I’m interested in language and representations of language, perhaps even language as a vessel for other endeavours.

I like literature and the literary world — how we sink into story, how metaphors settle into us like layers of coloured filters over the lens. See the childhood favourites, the foundational texts; see the pieces of meaning collected over time.

I like linguistics; in particular, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, informed by sociolinguistics. I like the little trees we draw — how intricate they get in modelling some one true structure of language, yet how alien they feel against the fluidity and aliveness of the language we know.

I like poetry, and how the poetic spirit calls out in everything I see — always the inclination towards romance, towards abundance, towards a feeling and a story. I like the constraints of a poem, and how it makes my imagination wander.

I like code — so many ways we've contrived to talk to computers, and, by extension, to each other. I like what happens when we take it upon ourselves to design language. (I like, too, the constraints of code; how it makes my imagination wander.)

I like sign language, and I like Braille; how they ask me to reckon with what language can be, and how language is so bound to access and community. I like the culture of language; how it means so much to us, how much we lose without it.

I like Morse code — language can be so coarse, and then so personal, so tactile, textural.

I like my heritage language; how I’ve hobbled along with it through the years. I like English, because it’s multiple hats on top of other hats. I like my mother tongue; I am so proud to have it.

I like text and typography — run my fingers over language laid out on a page, gentle or striking or elegant or even ugly. The shape of language, the texture of it, like a pool to dive into — I imagine it would ripple as I sank into the depths. Waves of glyphs, symbols, characters… Alphabetical order, systems of organisation, indexes… but perhaps that’s for another window, still being carved.