You bet. I'm going to be "that person" who has the audacity to comment on her OWN post. But it's more of a simple follow-up. I just had some extra thoughts that were a tad too belated to make it into my previous post about words and language, so I thought I'd throw them out here before they became too stale. If you don't remember that post or you're new here, go ahead and click the link below and maybe skim a little. Or don't. Whatever works.
Yes. I believe it is quite clear from the above excerpt that I have a strange infatuation with words, with the brilliance and limitlessness of language, with the unfamiliar yet readily welcomed tingling feeling that overwhelms me whenever I hear someone express an unprecedented thought, and express it with eloquence. I have found that there is something quite appealing – almost intoxicating – about a person who makes deliberate and noteworthy language choices, a person who does not live with the perpetual fear of the profound. I never truly realized how much value resided in such language until I found myself falling in love with a certain Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars. And indeed, you guessed it, he is a fictional character. But he spoke with grace and with earnestness and with a craft that appeared to be borderline uncrafted because it was so nonchalant, so effortless. From the moment he said, “My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations,” he legitimately had me swooning, holding on to every last word he said like each was the last day of summer, eliciting my attention, demanding my unhindered contemplation because I could sense it was fleeting. Even I, who currently is debating whether or not that kind of love is a mere fallacy or beautiful illusion, fell in love. I fell in love with his language, with his scintillating methods of expression. And it gave way to a love for him.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I recognize that being in love with a character from a novel is a bit unrealistic, and I recognize that it was indeed just a book, and he is just a character, and it’s a little weird to love something (or more accurately, someone) who is but a member of the musings of the intelligent and breathtaking word-artist John Green, but here’s the point I’m trying to make: Language commands respect; well-versed, practiced grammar is like a meager yet vastly effulgent candle cowering confidently (if that's possible) in the corner of a dark room; an adherence to vocabulary in its entirety and a love of the fact that one can never master it in its entirety are perhaps the most extraordinary things this world of words has to offer.
So seize it; take hold of it with all your might; clench your fists tightly and don't dare let it break away; feel free to immerse yourself in the ceaseless cascade that is language. Let your overly-simplified slate, your bland palate, be dirtied with sweet, untrodden words and whetted with an appetite for more. It will not go unnoticed. It will not go unvalued.
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