CONNECTION AS LANGUAGE + LANGUAGE AS CONNECTION
I don’t think it’s any surprise that language is connecting. To be able to express oneself is the basis of connection, a means of understanding and being understood. It’s the main way we get along, or don’t get along, verbally (or written, or signed) with grammatical structures to be concise and specific with our expression. But there are many ways we connect aside from what is normally considered language. The easiest example is body language, which is so well known and understood that we actually do deem it as a language, at least in its name. Getting cues and understanding intent and emotion can even be done unconsciously. Watching someone bounce their leg as they answer a question in class, and quit bouncing their leg when they’re done talking is a simple example. I can tell they’re anxious, and with the context of the situation, I understand why. There’s also the simple laughing and crying and facial expressions, which are so innately ingrained into our understanding of others. We immediately connect with the sound or sight of it, and we connect with it ourselves by our understanding of what makes us do that. So, in this case, we connect first, and then interpret it. It’s the opposite of learned, spoken language: Read, understand the meaning, connect emotionally with the learned meaning. Crying: See crying face, connect emotionally with the crying face, understand the meaning. Connecting first is instinctive in our senses. Many people can simply tell when someone doesn’t like them, even if they haven’t been rude or done anything wrong. They connect (or rather disconnect) with the emotion first, and then understand its meaning (interpret it like language). My own example of this is laughing and smiling while fencing with new people for the first time, and even though I didn’t understand a lot of what they were saying, I connected with them over our shared passion, without language.
But connecting without language can also be hard. Language is so special because we have been able to communicate extraordinarily complex ideas in a consumable way. So, while some connection is easy, like walking around an old town and taking pictures, feeling connected without talking, others are hard. I haven’t gotten to have a new, deep connection with intellectual thought in months. I miss feeling like I am learning something new and understanding someone on a personal level. You can only laugh about weather and culture shock with someone for so long before it feels like the connection has disintegrated and now it’s just being polite. I want to know what people think about, what troubles them or excites them. I want to read poetry and listen to music. I’m craving a new connection to satisfy some of my curiosity and bring me inspiration.
Actually, that felt like a very troubling problem for me. For two or three days I felt not lonely, and not alone, but separate. I had come so far around to new people and a situation where I really can only connection through action instead of language, that I was hit with a bit of despair as to whether or not I was capable of making those close relationships. Everyone else my age is living in dorms and meeting tons of new people who want to meet tons of new people and make new friends. The people around me here, in my program, are in the point where they’re on their own journey and living a life focused around themself first. And the other friends, at the university, I don’t yet have the opportunity to get deep with them because I lack the language skills. But suddenly, I was hit with a fit of inspiration and a wave of interest in my old hobbies again. I’m able to focus on myself, and feel fulfillment in myself, by myself. It feels almost like going back to quarantine (I know it’s been so long, but it truly is the most accurate feeling I can describe).
Suddenly, everything is up to me. I have a lot of free time, a lot of responsibilities, and a lot of opportunity. I am completely by myself, and also peripherally surrounded by people who are also looking for connection. But first, we’re all trying to figure it out on our own. I have no words to describe how I’m feeling to some people, so I just feel it. Instead of explaining it, it just happens. And now I’m connecting with a part of my soul again. I’ve started drawing and wearing fun outfits again and it’s a very indescribable state of mind. Everything is easier. There are no boundaries. Part of it may be my blog about rules, where I learned I can really just do what I want when I want. I want an ice cream from 7-11 on my way home? No guilt or block to stop me. And when I stop blocking myself from the regular life stuff, I can stop blocking myself from the hobby stuff too. I’ve gone back to connection with myself, both through language like this blog and without language like feeling like doing something and just doing it.
I am so grateful and still nervous about my language barrier. It’s less like a true barrier and more like a membrane. Some small things get through, but most things are blocked at a certain point. But that membrane has also allowed for my intake and output to be filtered into simpler things. Language has made me feel like such an individual, inside and outside of others. I am practicing myself in tons of ways, to many people, including myself. Language is both necessary for complexity connection and a wall against the unexplainable soulful connections we feel with ourselves and others. I don’t think I’d be feeling and thinking this way if I was anywhere else.