"I didn't have the words"
The frustration of emotions caged inside the head may lead to explosions that maim more than the body.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”
Who could forget Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech? He gave it way back in 1963 and yet it still reverberates today.
Queen Elizabeth I
Let’s back up a bit! The website of the Royal Museums Greenwich observes that in 1588: “Queen Elizabeth 1 used her power over language to frame the narrative of the Spanish Armada.”
Indeed she did albeit, to our sensitivities, in an almost misogynistic way:
“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too…”
Elizabeth I is woven into the history books for many reasons. Her mastery of language is one of those reasons.
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill similarly carved his place with oratory. In 1940, in the desperate early years of the Second World War, he roused the House of Commons:
“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”
The famous examples are many. We could use a few more leaders skilled in oration right now. But perhaps we should be less ambitious and simply be better than we are at ‘doing words,’ closer to home.
“I didn’t have the words.”
I watched a documentary that traced the struggles of several ex-prisoners as they rebuilt their lives from the hellish pit of addiction, usually the reason they were in prison in the first place. These men had successfully transformed their lives and were now achievers in new areas, such as starting a business, learning a trade, or returning to education.
It was inspiring listening to them. One young man said something insightful and memorable. He had had a lot to contend with in the difficult family circumstances that defined his teenage years. He felt anger, confusion, rebellion and – he could see now – a crippling loneliness that set him on the road to keeping company that was trouble.
Even if there had been someone to listen, he said, “I didn’t have the words.” He didn’t have the vocabulary, a well of words, to explain, manage and, vitally, to downgrade the storms of adolescence playing out on his troubled stage.
The words made sense and spoke
By contrast, I watched a young child pouring over a very elementary reading book. The child was feeling her way along the letters, mouthing the sounds until the words made sense and spoke to her. She was building her well of words, a vocabulary with which to navigate her future, to express her ideas, joys and griefs to the end of her days. Expertise with language is such an elementary skill. We deplete our children’s minds if we’re happy to ‘get by’ with a limited ability to mould our desires into tangible shape. Why? Because how else are ideas explained, resentments purged or thankfulness expressed?
Here is an apocryphal story, but bear with me
A couple moved into an old house and began to notice that there seemed to be something unseen dashing about their living room every now and then. (So far, so original. Bear with me, I said.) This ‘thing’ had a traceable trajectory around the room every time it appeared. For example, the coffee table wobbled, then the door shuddered, then a cushion depressed in the middle, then the curtains wafted sideways.
The intrepid couple decided that this was some ‘thing’ that it might be possible to catch. So one evening, when the rampage started, they followed the trail and managed to catch a little ‘thing’. It was totally invisible but they could get their hands round it and feel it, a little see-through ghost. Enter a packet of Play-Doh.
While one held the piece of air, the other stuck bits of Play-Doh over the surface of whatever it was. Hey presto, they finally revealed the shape of a little, struggling pig!
Like that rampaging piglet, thoughts are invisible. Words are thoughts made visible. Words are the clothes that thought must put on to be useful, meaningful and shared, to explain, describe, enthuse, lead and inspire.
Seamus Heaney’s beautiful poem, Digging, subtly expresses the longing and desire to use words to punch a path into the future.
John Keats
Staying with poetry, I don’t know if the works of John Keats are studied much these days – maybe they are – but he puts this masterfully in his sonnet ‘When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be’:
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
As that young ex-prisoner was now able to articulate, the frustration of emotions caged inside the head may lead to explosions that maim more than the body.
Martin Luther King had a dream. It didn’t stay in his head. It broke out in memorable words, words so perfect that they ring down the years, challenging and unforgettable.
Please feel free to comment below, whether you agree, disagree, or have been personally affected by anything discussed.
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