FLUENCY

Archaic words are those terms which were once used commonly in a language, but which are now rarely used. They constitute a slow eddy, a back water, a stagnant pool in the stream of sound and image that is language. A synonym for archaic is antiquated which means characteristic of an earlier or more primitive time. Take primitive with a grain of salt. Homo sapiens today are no more evolved than the cave painters of Altamira. Evolution, like the water cycle, does not work towards perfection, only towards efficacy. And the same can be said for language.

The internet has a plethora of sites that list archaic words. Cheyne is such a word. Meaning? Pronunciation To read Shakespeare these days one must be well versed in archaic language. Both words and rhythms have changed over time.

Fools had ne'er less wit in a year;

For wise men have grown foppish,

They know not how their wits to wear,

Their manners are so apish.

(King Lear, Act I, Scene IV)

Not only is his language Elizabethan (17th century), but he also relished the words and phrases from the middle ages (roughly 1000 to 1500 CE). The Canterbury Tales (1387) provides a plethora of tasty verbiage; and the Tales are well worth a read. Cheyne is used in the following quote from Chaucer, and context provides ample clues to its meaning.

For with that faire cheyne of love he bond
The fyr, the eyr, the water, and the lond
In certeyn boundes, that they may nat flee.
(The Canterbury Tales

The Knight’s Tale, 2987–2993)

Vintage literature is not the only reason to be well versed in archaic words and phrases. To read history with some degree of understanding requires a knowledge of the language used during the period in question. 'Unique,' for example, no longer means unique. And, of course, the classic aphorism of Spanish philosopher George Santayana still applies:Those who do not read history are condemned to repeat it.

Use over time for the word 'plethora.'

Languages, like all concepts, have a flow to their pattern of development, their use, their misuse, their demise. The above might be described as a flow chart. This is but one of many ways to use the concept of flow to describe words and language. 'Plethora' seems to have made a comeback of late.

Flow theory, created by a somewhat obscure Hungarian professor of psychology, states rather baldly that humans are most content when they are in a state of flow; and flow is described as a state of mind which entails complete absorption in the task at hand. The state is further marked by intrinsic motivation and complete immersion. All else becomes lost to consciousness in these moments.

Language itself is fluent when the metered rhythm of the words matches both the measured syntax of sentences and the logical order of paragraphs. Once flow is established, various techniques can be used to emphasize content. Staccato delivery might be used to emphasize specific words (the hard boiled detective grilling a suspect; the emotional orator pushing an argument). Words with multiple syllables are often relied on to suggest the writer's or speaker's erudition. And space --- the long pause (look back at comedian Jack Benny) or blank in the middle or between paragraphs (common poetical device) --- is often used to change the flow of language.

When one has thoroughly learned a language, one is said to be fluent. Without an understanding of how languages evolve from origin to ending, fluency will be difficult. Non-native speakers prove the point. Even basic literacy will be compromised without some knowledge of both the old and the new and the rhythms of each. Who'd a thunk it. LOL.

NOTES:
Fluency has many definitions most of which pertain to reading and speaking well. The word simply means to flow.

Here is Santayana again:

... the whole machinery of our intelligence, our general ideas and laws, fixed and external objects, principle persons and gods, are so many symbolic, algebraic expressions. They stand for experience; experience which we are incapable of retaining and surveying in its multitudinous immediacy. We should flounder hopelessly, like the animals, did we not keep ourselves afloat and direct our course by these intellectual devices. Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of fact.

The Sense Of Beauty (1896), Pt. III, Form; § 30: p. 125

And click on the name to learn more about Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.

RUBBLE

A song by Blind Alfred Reed (1880 - 1956) and performed by Willie Watson raises questions with no easy answers. Are we our brother's keeper? And is the concern for our brothers and sisters (lions and lambs? Trees? That rock you stubbed your toe on?) relative or absolute? Do we help this one, but not that one? Her but not him? Us but not them? Eeeny meeny miny moe.

Maestro, cue up the song. We'll have a listen. See what we think.

Watson, 'Always Lift Him Up'
(click photo to listen)

We live in interesting times. Old folks, goes one suggestion, have become expendable. The president of the united states (lower case intentional: he could use the humility) is at best an ignorant thug. A pestilence lives next door.

A poet's task is to reflect in metered words and phrases the tenor of the times. William Butler Yeats wrote "The Second Coming" in 1919. The first world war had just ended. The so-called Spanish flu had killed more than 20,000,000 people. Grim times.

Yeats was a notorious rewriter. The version of his poem below is from 1921 as it appeared in the Dial Magazine. What follows Yeats' poem is a bit of annotation. The poem has suffered pillaging for decades, from a Joan Didion essay to an obscure rock band's title song. A Paris Review article suggests the words and phrases of this poem are the most used and abused --- few, apparently, understand Yeats' meaning and many disregard his context --- in the English language.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Spiritus Mundi translates as the spirit of the world. The phrase, according to most philosophies, is used to mean that all living things on the planet are interconnected. Intrinsically. Innately. Plato fostered this notion, and it was an important component of most Neoplatonic philosophies both East and West. John Donne's poem, 'No Man Is an Island' (published 1624), uses this idea as its theme.

Some think even the broad scope of Spiritus Mundi is short sighted. Is inorganic matter without spirit? And what of other celestial bodies? What of the Universe itself? A long walk off a short pier, this business. Enough, perhaps, to simply consider the beast who slouches next door. What of him? Or her? Or them?

In “The Waste Land”, published in 1922, T.S. Eliot has a poem that captures the same atmosphere of impending doom as the Yeats' work. His opening stanza is entitled 'The Burial Of The Dead'. Eliot, however, chose to end on a somewhat enigmatic, yet, essentially positive note. The end of stanza 5:

These fragments I have shored against the ruins

Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's man againe.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih shantih shantih

The meaning of the Sanskrit 'da' words can be rendered as charity, empathy, self-control. The meaning of shantih is peace beyond understanding, and is the usual conclusion of the Indian philosophical Upanishads. Eliot has said that he used difficult allusions and Sanskrit incantations to make things difficult for his readers. If a line is hard to understand, if meaning must be worked for, then the thought will be better appreciated. Or so thought Eliot.

Intellectual hurdles or no, is our dilemma resolved, our questions answered? Perhaps. Maybe. Charity, empathy and self-control are fine virtues difficult to obtain. But what they offer one's brothers and sisters and dogs and cats is not always what is wanted or needed. Alas, alack. And peace beyond understanding? That 'beyond understanding' does put the wrench in the works. That which is beyond understanding is also beyond words and language. Doesn't leave much. Inanity perhaps. How whimsical.

So: Our brother's keeper? The ceremony of innocence is some long time dead and drowned. “We are all murders and prostitutes.”1 Which is to say that folks living in the proverbial glass house shouldn't cast aspersions. Or, conversely, lifting others, lifts yourself.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih shantih shantih

NOTES:

Plato, in Timaeus, wrote:

Therefore, we may consequently state that: this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.

1 R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience, 1967.

WHIMSY

Whimsy, by definition, is a whim, freak, or caprice; but this definition does not take one to the heart of the matter. Whim, on the other hand, provides four meanings as a noun and two more as a verb, one intransitive, one transitive. I am not referring here to the ornithological whim which is but another local name for the wigeon.

whim, noun:

1. A pun; double-meaning.

2. A sudden turn or start of the mind; a capricious notion; a humor; caprice; fancy.

3. A fanciful or fantastic device, object, or person.

4. Any of various machines for hoisting.

Let us forego the fourth definition (at least until we are hoisted on our own petard); and put aside the verbal usage as well. Whims and to whim are rather rare these days. 'A sudden turn of the mind' suits my purpose best; but note that the word seems to range widely from madness and mayhem to joyful meandering. Behind the freak lies chaos; bolstering the joy lies wholesomeness. I have written elsewhere that wholesome and integral seem synonymous to me; and so, too, the words wholesomeness and integrity.

The etymology of the word whim places its origin in the Scandinavian languages. In Norway, kvim is foolery, as in our Tom Foolery, acting the fool, pretending to be mad. In Denmark, vimse means to be giddy, skip or whisk about. A selection of synonyms for whimsy gives some idea of the range of the word:

bee, caprice, crank, fancy, freak, humor, kink, maggot, megrim, notion, vagary, vagrancy

This brief introduction is necessary to support my notion that making a decision is, for the most part, a whimsical endeavor. Deciding, of course, is an integral part of all behavior; so that one might conclude that most of human behavior is, well, freakish or fanciful. Think not? And just how did you come to that decision? Make a list, did you? Pro and con and what-have-you. Enumerated this and that, skipping about until giddy; then, finally, pulling the trigger. Deciding.

This business of decision is a function of one's mind, and can be lumped under the general rubric of problem solving. Just how one goes about solving problems is not well understood by neurologists, psychologists, or the fellow down the block. While it is a myth that one only uses 10% of the brain, the fact remains that homo sapiens only understand about 10% of the brain's function.¹

How problem solving actually comes about falls largely into that cloudy 90% area of confusion. Einstein, when confronted with the abstruse, use to go for a ride on his bike. "Intuition is a sacred gift," he said. Intuition. "The rational mind is a faithful servant." Reason. I would have added '... but a faithful servant ...' The intention is to downgrade reason from all-powerful to merely another tool, blunt though I find it, to shape one's thoughts. Trying to decide whether to fish or cut bait, for example, is a common metaphoric conundrum that rarely succumbs to reason. Listing pros and cons is enlisting the aid of that faithful servant, reasoning. This method will barely get you to the door; but allowing intuition to have its say (how is that done, you ask? How much time do you have?) is receiving the gift. Wham, bam, the door slams open. Decision made. Problem solved. Why didn't I think of that! A bit whimsical, this business, don't you think?

If you are struggling with your intuition, not hearing those little voices, it should come as no surprise. All of modern society from public schools to corporate management, from parenting to politicking, is a wet blanket thrown over intuition to keep it down. If not used, one loses the knack.

You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational mind doesn’t nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.

Anne Lamott

And from 1500 years ago, while the Greeks were poisoning the well of Thought with reason, Chinese mystics were telling stories like 'The Empty Cup.' Many versions of the story exist. Here is mine:

The Magistrate went to the Master seeking advice on the latest outbreak of lawlessness. The Master bade him sit and prepared tea. "The District is all higgledy-piggledy," the man said. "I have done all I can, and am now at an impasse. What should I do? What can I do?"" He wrung his hands in agitation. Sweat beaded across the man's broad forehead.

When tea was steeped and stirred, the Master placed a cup before the portly Magistrate. He began to pour. As his guest looked on, the cup filled. The Magistrate became increasingly anxious. The Master poured. As the cup overflowed, spilling over the table and running off into the man's lap, he pushed himself up with an oath. "Fool," he cried. "What are you playing at?" The Master merely nodded his head. "Just so," he said. "Like this cup, you are much too full of yourself. Emptiness must precede wisdom."

A mind replete with facts, opinions, anecdotes, and preconceived notions, will fail to recognize wisdom. Every time. Such a man with such a mind will not even accept the mildest piece of advice, or the most gentle rebuke. He is lost in the hurly-burly of his mind.

Whimsy, I would suggest, is the function of an empty head. And the back side of whimsy is ... wisdom.

DID YOU KNOW?

A petard is a bomb, and to be hoisted by one is to be blown up. Shakespeare coined the phrase '...hoisted with his own petard...' for Hamlet, and it has since become something of a cliché.

Anne Lamott is a writer, educator, and political activist from northern California.

1https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-people-only-use-10-percent-of-their-brains/