1, #146 - Trying to learn to use words

Estimated Read Time: 60 seconds.

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it.
And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again : and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

— T.S. Eliot, from Four Quartets, “East Coker,” V.

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It encourages me that even my favorite poet, writing my favorite poem, felt like he was struggling to express himself with words.

It’s hard, isn’t it?

But like him, I find that it’s liberating not to feel that whatever we say has to be original—after all, there’s nothing new under the sun. It’s okay to repeat or remix what has been said before. In fact, that’s inevitable. And especially in today’s information-saturated world, there are plenty of treasures that have been found and lost again. It’s worth dredging them up and shining your own light on them. Or even just trying.