mincing (words and vegetables)

found out i had to be at NB this morning, for a half working/half socially obligatory bunch of hours. as usual, i was somewhat irritated when thinking about it in theory, primarily because i'd hoped to go to Novi Sad for the weekend. and when i go somewhere for the weekend, i want to leave on friday evening (at the latest). additionally, the concept of a number of us NB affiliates being there seemed just that (a concept) and, moreover, one which involved a great deal of needless, senseless (headless chicken) furniture moveage and other cult-of-leader activities, which i'll decline to mention here. in any case, the actuality of the event was much better than expected and consisted of a breakfast with parents and kids. for this reason and because of the underlying premise of the event, i realised amid my kicking and screaming that, yet again, attending was the Right Thing to Do. mercifully, though i was hiding in the kitchen, assiduously chopping up cucumbers (but, apparently, without proper attention to the aesthetics of their arrangement; i considered the vast quantity that i had amassed to be of more import than all that girly whining nonsense), until it was over and done—the inevitable "introduction of the new teacher from...well, never mind, since she doesn't, herself, know" was over relatively quickly. i carried on several broken conversations with all the ardour i could muster.

Vesna came over to where i was talking with some parents, and a discussion of how NB functions in Serbian society (how it is different from the mentality at large and, especially, in schools (this latter a reason and perpetuation of the former)) ensued. on that note—i find that i can understand so much more when the topic about which "we" are talking is one which matters. yes, sadly, this often means that i've already come to an agreement about the subject, or have had the thoughts, myself, before. so i suppose none of this is at all surprising, given that, in some sense, the real mental work (harrowing out) has been done—and i'm free to focus solely on the logistics of it being linguistically displayed. this is precisely the problem with actual/human communication, in general. even as i make the above claim, i know that i've overstepped the allowable boundaries: all i am justified in saying is that "the topic" is something about which *i* have formed opinions and perhaps conclusions. there is really no way that i can tell if these are reciprocated. i *think* they are. they well might be. but, in the absence of assurance thereof (made dual here, because not only can i be uncertain about another person, but when we have only a half of a language in common, there are even further assumptions trussed up upon, and for the purpose of substituting for, the glaring limitations), i can never say that i know this. in use, for obvious and functional reasons, two (or more) speakers must assume certain basic things—in short, that the other's words mean what is said (and, when ambiguous, that the explanation's statements mean what their words do, in common usage) and, thus, that each says what he means. without going into the specific ridiculosities, this provides quite a wide sphere for any conversation to take place. the second, perhaps more important (or more apt to yield consternating and, well, "meaningful" results) given about real/human conversation is that although each speaker says what he means and means what he says, these are self-assessed terms. this would all be fine and good if listeners asked questions at every turn, pinning and specifying the meaning of a statement into ever narrower terms. this, however, mostly because of societal factors (i think), is rarely the case. instead, those attempting to communicate opt for the absolute worst possible (i think, again) solution to the problem—reality, rather—of ultimate unbreacheability. that is, they simply "understand" the other's words in the context of what those words would mean for them, those who listen. at the outset, this is somewhat allowable (i will say "understandable"—because i must resist the maddening tendency discussions of this nature have, wherein all words whose concepts are under scrutiny ("meaning," "use," "intention," etcetera) are no longer fair candidates for, well, usage)), in the first place because otherwise even a simple, short interchange would become a monstrosity only risked by the daring (or those who mix mathematics and grammar). but, in the process of any conversation, the standards for assumptions become more and more relaxed (maybe of necessity, but i've already stated at the outset that i'm talking about problems with the necessity that informs common conversations), until nothing is really being *said* any longer—the only thing operative is a long and—at worst, parallel, at best, convergent at points—line of strung-up assumptions. granted, this varies much, depending on the speakers involved. if this is the case, though, with those who speak the same language and, as such, do not have the grasping, clawing desire to wrench out an understanding, having the freedom of asking clarificatory questions—how much more so will it be the case where a handful of words must stand in for entire wholes of rich, subtle languages? the desire to understand and be understood is, perhaps, the most essentially human one (it is at the root of many other nominees for this position); this is exactly what causes the problem: in an attempt to understand another, one stops playing by the rules and is governed mostly by the feeling/sense of "understanding" (a remembered quality, pedestalled as such), which is, unfortunately, highly imitable. the fault belongs to no one and those who wrap themselves in language, forgetting that its blanket does—and must—also shroud a scythe.

one undeniable point of intersection: breakfast here is no halfhearted, sweet affair—but the way it should be: spicy, envegetabled, enmeated and enjogurted.