something, the
easier it is to lie. I’m not saying one can’t outright lie in
Spanish, but I think it is harder to deceive through complexity
in Spanish. When one person speaks to another, it is an
attempt to “communicate”. That is, it is an attempt to
“commune” with that other person’s mind or soul. But there
is
also
pseudo‐communication,
which
isn’t
really
communication at all, but a pretense at it. Formal speaking,
ritual speaking, rhetoric used to induce a particular action in
another,
argument,
subterfuge,
these
are
all
pseudo‐
communication.
What
pseudo‐communication
does
is
immediately destroy all hope of real communication. And
certain languages have much more developed and much more
advanced vocabularies of pseudo‐communication than others.
I honestly think the hardest languages to pseudo‐
communicate in are ancient Greek and Latin, and that is why
they were used by learned men, universally, for so many
centuries. But for some reason, civilized man decided to
abandon persuasion through reason, and decided to go with
deceitful rhetoric, and that is why the classic languages were
abandoned. The thing is, Spanish draws pretty heavily from
the classical languages, especially Latin. But then again, so
does Law in most cultures. And if there is anything the Law is,
it is pseudo‐communication raised to an art form, and then
turned into code. It is basically the bastardization of what was
once one of the purist of languages. I have to make myself
remember
that
Spanish
was
the
language
of
the
conquistadores and the inquisitores. So maybe I don’t know as
much about language as I think I do. I do know that Spanish
doesn’t belong to the conquerors and torturers any more. It
belongs to people like me. Can a language choose who it
wants to belong to? I say yes.
One thing I have learned in my brief time on Earth is
that if something is easy to believe in, it probably isn’t the
truth. And the Virgen Maria that appeared to me was making
it pretty hard to believe she was the Virgen Maria. But, in the
end, after all the doubt, after weighing all the pros and cons
very analytically, after thinking about something til one’s brain
hurts, we all do what everyone has always done. We kneel
down at some altar or another, admit we are still fairly stupid,
and put our fate in the hands of some higher power. We take
that leap of faith. At least I do. Although, I must admit, and I’m
doing this metaphorically (a Greek word) I always make sure
the bungee chord is well connected to me, and to whatever
I’m jumping off of.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” The Virgen Maria asks.
“I don’t not believe you.” I tell her.
“Do you believe in God?” The Virgen Maria asks.
“Yes.”
“No you don’t.” The Virgen Maria says. “I can read your
mind.”
“I believe in God like I believe in truth and beauty. They
are concepts that always come a hair’s breadth away from
being objectively real. They always exist in some degree of
magnitude that never quite reaches 100%. But as long as