"Does language shape what we perceive [...], or are our perceptions pure sensory impressions, immune to the arbitrary ways that language carves up the world?

The latest research changes the framework, perhaps the language of the debate, suggesting that language clearly affects some thinking as a special device added to an ancient mental skill set. Just as adding features to a cellphone or camera can backfire, language is not always helpful. For the most part, it enhances thinking. But it can trip us up, too."

(full article: NY Times, When Language Can Hold the Answer.)

[...And an insight that, for me, is vaguely connected with, among other things, spring and paradise: If you were someone who likes to put people into categories, you could divide Westerners in sƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ and non-verbal beings. Non-verbal people, prosaic people, use words as instruments. For a non-verbal person, words are no more ambiguous than, say, a hammer: words are the tools they use to express a fact, like a hammer is the tool they use to nail down a plank.

I am a ƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ: For me, everything is words. Words are not just tools, they are the medium I move through, and as such, they are snonƃıqɯɐ by nature. Communication is a more complex operation than nailing down a plank, because there are so sƃuıuɐǝɯ ʎuɐɯ as there are sɹǝʞɐǝds, sɹǝuǝʇsıl, and sʇxǝʇuoɔ put together. ('Gleich mit jedem Regengusse ändert sich dein holdes Tal, ach, und in demselben Flusse schwimmst du nicht zum zweiten Mal.')

‘Only connect’ (the prosaic with the ɔıʇǝod) is what we have been taught to do. Only connect, however, has never worked for me. Sooner or later, I am either getting bored or frustrated with the prosaic. I can never fully be myself when trying to only connect with non-verbal people. Prosaic is a language, as is ɔıʇǝod, and when sƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ try to connect with non verbal ones, they learn to speak Prosaic. The fact that we are sƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ enables us to pick up Prosaic pretty easily, just as we pick up, say, Spanish. Non-verbal beings, however, don’t speak ɔıʇǝod. Whenever you as a ƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ switch to ɔıʇǝod – the language in which you are, no matter what language you currently express yourself in - while with someone who only speaks Prosaic, you end up frustrated, because they make you feel ridiculous for lack of understanding. I am good at Prosaic, but only because I am deeply lɐqɹǝʌ, which means, deeply Un-Prosaic. And: I am tired of non-verbal beings. For me, only connect is not the answer. I am not interested in building any more ‘rainbow bridges that should connect the prose in us with the passion.’ I want to be a ƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ among other sƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ. Where everything that matters already is. Where there’s no need for construction work with a hammer that always comes down on my own thumb.]

For the first time, things start smelling a little bit like they are supposed to (summer, autumn and winter in New England do not smell enough; I have been missing the intensity of the seasons in the air). I walk along lake Waban and marvel at the dots of light, very travel-ad-ish, dancing on the water (I did not know that dots like that exist outside of photoshop) and there is this sound in the background, the tap-tap of boats tied up on the shore gently bumping into each other (the exact same sound you would choose if you were to make this scene into a Dawson's Creek episode). I pass red brick castles set against a backdrop of cornflower blue air; fairy tale land. I am walking barefoot, and I think of all the people who believe this is paradise. The same people who argue that Bellamy's Boston, The Giver's world and The Village are nice places. The same people who told me they would give up colors and music if someone released them from the burden of making decisions. I said Are you crazy?!, and they did not understand.



"'In fact,' said Mustapha Mond, 'you're claiming the right to be unhappy.'
'All right then,' said the Savage defiantly, 'I'm claiming the right to be unhappy. Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.'
There was a long silence.
'I claim them all,' said the Savage at last."

(Aldous Huxley, Brave New World)



It is time to leave... Paradise is not my kind of place.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead."

(G. H. Auden, As I walked Out One Evening)

Ich denke uns an einen regenwolkengrauen Strand. Wir gehen nebeneinander gegen den Wind, so, wie ich es am liebsten mag, und ziehen eine Spur gelber Gummistiefelsohlenabdrücke hinter uns her. Meine Haare flackern im Wind, und ich denke das Geräusch von Zeltplanen in den Hintergrund, die sich aufbauschen und gegen das Aufspannen wehren. Die Romanfigur setzt ihre Kapuze auf. Ich denke sie nach meinem Wochenende fragen: „Freitag? Samstag? Sonntag?“ Sie spuckt mir die Tage entgegen. Sie redet nicht gern. Ich sage: „Romanfigur? Kennst du dieses Gefühl... dieses Gefühl... Fingerabdrücke auf den Gedanken eines anderen zu hinterlassen? Beim Gedankenlesen?“
„Ja“, sagt die Romanfigur.
„Und liest du auch“, frage ich, „in aufgeschlagenen Wohnungen wie in einem Tagebuch? Am Samstag –. Romanfigur?“
„Ja?“
„Du hörst doch zu?“
Ich denke ein paar Möwen schreien.
„Wenn es sein muss.“ Die Romanfigur ist stehen geblieben, weil ihr die immer länger werdende gelbe Gummistiefelspur im Sand zu schwer wird. Sie versucht stattdessen, sich eine Zigarette anzuzünden, was gar nicht so leicht ist, weil der Wind so stark geht.
„Es muss.“ Ich denke die Romanfigur ein bisschen aufmerksamer.
„Am Samstag“, sage ich beunruhigt, „hatte ich das Gefühl, unter seinem Geruch fast zu verschwinden.“
„Dieses Gefühl“, sagt die Romanfigur entschieden, „sollte man nicht haben. Erst recht nicht, wenn man du ist.“
Ich nicke erleichtert. „Später habe ich im Regennass eine zerkratzte Scheibe Musik gefunden –“
„Gut“, sagt die Romanfigur, „man sollte nie aufhören, Dinge zu finden. Erst recht nicht, wenn es regnet.“
„Stimmt.“ Ich nicke beruhigt.
„Zigarette?“, fragt die Romanfigur.
„Danke.“ Ich versuche, eine Romanzigarette anzuzünden, was gar nicht so leicht ist, weil der Wind so stark geht.

Die Romanfigur lächelt leise wissend in ihren gelben Gummistiefeln. Ich radiere sie aus.

"The Lonely Planet guidebook empire is reeling from claims by one of its authors that he plagiarised and made up large sections of his books and dealt drugs to make up for poor pay. [...]

"They didn't pay me enough to go Colombia,'' he said.

"I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating - an intern in the Colombian Consulate."

(The Daily Telegraph, via: orf.at )

Surprising? Not really. All's fair in love and war and publishing...

Update: Thomas Kohnstamm and our guidebooks - Lonely Planet's position.
Discussion on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum.

Lonely Planet makes the best of the situation: They are reviewing all the information Kohnstamm has ever contributed to their South America guidebooks and keeping their readers up to date. They do not deny anything Kohnstamm said in his interview or attack him in response.
The majority of the LP readers understand, and don't focus their anger and frustration on LP, but on Kohnstamm. Even though LP does not say it directly (which could be interpreted against them), it becomes clear to everyone that things like that do happen. Accurancy of information is not even the topic here - it is marketing strategies. Things won't change if we stop relying on LP guidebooks, but the strategy will fail if we don't buy Kohnstamm's book.