This is not a journal.
The pictures negative words paint.
Isn’t it nuts what words can do? Yesterday I got an email that began with, “unfortunately…” The way that little word impacts me every time I read it is colossal. I am trying to learn how to deal with “unfortunately” in a healthier way, not to allow it to totally bowl me over and ruin the rest of my day or week, which it certainly has in the past. As I read my email, I felt the letters slice beneath my skin and crawl down my spine until they came to rest in my belly, churning out successive waves of doubt and fragility. Regardless of my efforts to unlearn the pain that words like unfortunately bring me, they have an unquestionable power. I know you relate, refusal and disappointment are such universal experiences. A quick google tells me that the word unfortunately has been used the way colleges, doctors and banks use it today for the last 250 years. Imagine all the hearts those thirteen measly letters have broken. (Then again, think of the scrabble score you could get…)
I want to talk about this painting by Dutch artist René Magritte. Don’t worry, you didn’t skip anything, I’ll come back to my unfortunately in just a moment. The painting is very clearly of an old tobacco pipe (the pipe might be a brand new one, but a pipe like this is certainly old fashioned nowadays). The script underneath it, translated from French, reads: This is not a pipe. Now, I know that some people roll an eye at this sort of thing, but let me explain it to you in the way it was explained to me. Yes, that painting looks like a pipe, so the suggestion that it isn’t sounds absurd. What Magritte is calling attention to is that this image is simply a picture of a pipe, not the pipe itself. You can’t put tobacco in that picture and smoke it. In the same way that the word pipe conjures an image in your mind, but you cannot actually hold or touch that thought. The confusing sentence under the image becomes clearer with this perspective; that isn’t a pipe, it’s just a picture of one. The fancy, university terms are as follows: the picture of a pipe, or indeed the word “pipe,” is the symbol, and the actual tobacco pipe sitting in your grandad’s drawer is the symbolised. Now you can wow all your friends the next time you visit a museum, well done you!
I find that some symbols have very rigid connections with what they symbolise, or rather, when I hear some words, the image I paint in my mind is simple and clear. “Coffee,” for example. I think of a steaming cup of black coffee, maybe I continue to imagine a little café, or if I am particularly eager I can imagine the smell of piping hot water hitting coffee grounds. Yum! On the other hand, some symbols have very powerful, but less rigid connections with what they symbolise. “Excitement,” for instance. I imagine squealing high-schoolers jumping up and down, I imagine children opening presents on Christmas morning, long distance partners finally seeing each other again, golden retrievers eagerly wagging their tails. You can see how this is a far more subjective connection between the symbol and the symbolised. I bet most people think of a cup of hot coffee when they hear the word. There may be some variation: you might think of an iced frappe or a flat white, but we’re all roughly on the same page. But what if I said “parents?” Or “summer?” Or “joy?” All of a sudden the paintings we create in our minds become radically diverse.
I think that’s why the pen is considered to be mightier than the sword. What image does the symbol “sword” create in your mind? I think of knights, maybe Lord of the Rings. I think of the ways a sword can be used to hurt someone; and then the tracks sort of go cold there. But the emails or letters or phone calls that begin with, “we regret to inform you…” or “unfortunately…” create cascading waterfalls of anxious thoughts in my mind. They symbolise treachery, ruin, despair, hopelessness, loss, or even death. The threat of violence is easily imagined, but somehow it doesn’t seem to hover over me. The ever-growing, overshadowing threat of “unfortunately” runs deep and cold. I realise that this is a very privileged perspective and I assure you, if we met in a darkened alley and you were equipped with a sword and I a pen, you would win. It was just an interesting thought that occurred to me - maybe some of the heartache in symbols like “no” or “couldn’t” has to do with how vast and complex the symbolised may be. What is the real thing (powerful emotion, financial consequence, lost opportunity) that this word represents? It’s a scary question.
I don’t like “unfortunately”. And I don’t like losing mental ground to the emotional chaos caused by all of the words pictured above. It is thoroughly frustrating when a wonderful day is knocked askew by the influence of somebody else’s negative words, and what those words may symbolise. I wish I could dismiss the power of difficult words. I wish I could undermine them, call them silly little shapes sitting in a line. That’s all words are. Except that they aren’t. Words have power. The songs we sing, the books or tweets or comments we read, the fears we whisper to ourselves; words have power. Maybe, though, I get to choose if they have power over me. I think no matter how hard I try to let go (maybe there is a bigger problem in trying to let go), I will always be influenced by negative words. I believe it’s a good thing that the words of others can create both positive and negative emotional reactions. I want to learn to hear the nos, regrettablys and cannots in my life, though, without allowing them disproportionate power over my psyche. There is real sadness and pain in these words, I do not wish to abolish that experience altogether, but I hope to steer clear of the bitterness they seem to stir up within me.
It really sucked that my email began with an unfortunately. I am holding out hope that one day soon, I will open my inbox to find an email titled, “Fantastic news!”