The Letters

I love words. I love language. You know how they say that actions speak louder than words? I often don't see that. The tongue is a double-edged sword, says the Bible. Seamus Heaney declares in his poem "Digging" that "the squat pen sits in my hand/snug as a gun." Words are very powerful things. The English language is the most expressive language in the world - even more so than the romantic languages like French or Italian. Where the word "romantic" is used, I would not reuse it when it comes to describing figures such as Benito Mussolini or my Parisian year nine French teacher, Madame Bourgeois. Neither qualify as romantic. Furthermore, I believe to be qualified as anything, you need to be counted as human first.

It's a matter of finding the perfect words to perfectly describe things. This is something my inelegant younger sister, whose life draws upon the riveting philosophies and poetically life-altering lyrics of Avril Lavigne and Taylor Swift, doesn't seem to understand. She is the sort of person who thinks the words that smug white teenage boys spout in their "musik" are actually documented words in the dictionary. The less said about her, the better. Shakespeare is a man of genius, in my humble opinion - a man who was able to come up with practically half of the English language we know today, and had a vocabulary larger than Oscar Wilde's and Aeschylus' combined. He always found the most evocative and clean-cut perfect way to execute what he was trying to communicate. I'll bet that in the sonnets alone, there is a quote for every man in every situation. And any time he struggled to find a word to fully convey what he meant, he created it himself.

For the same reason, I give much thanks to Lewis Carroll. The word "chortling" has me chortling for ages.

Thus, have you ever stopped to reason just how poignant a single letter is?

Albert Einstein, quite ironically, was kicked out of school. My best beloved claims it was because he was so lazy. While I deem this to be true (if I were as clever as Einstein, I would have found such a commonplace and patronising educational institute unbearable), I happen to understand another rumour as to explicate his expulsion. In his first year, being taught the alphabet, he never repeated the alphabet in the correct order. Not the typical twinkle-twinkle, little star tune of "A, B, C, D, E, F, G...how I wonder what you are..." He repeated the letters of the alphabet in a deconstructed order, completely slovenly and blithe. Why?

Because, he reasoned, letters do not need a constructed order. They have no dominance over the other. If anything, letters of the English alphabet should be ordered by their frequency in speech, starting with 'e'. But no. The ABC method just isn't valid nor logical. Letters all hold the same value as each other.

But does this make them any less venerated?
Of course not.

Without letters, we would be without spoken language. Without spoken language, we would rely on gestures, expressions and formless vocalisations. We'd be like cavemen. Bear in mind, cavemen could probably communicate very well with each other, but without the beautiful essence of words we have today.

Everything you need to express lies in the words you own. The English language is beautiful, destructive, revitalising, inspiring, brutal, influential and the most potent and charismatic of languages. The only time I would resort to abuse it with foul words such as "fuck" will be a signature of my sense being numbed with stark emotion - a token for times when I am just too driven to regard disciplined craft of words. However base and unsatisfying I find it to study the technicalities and the semantics of English, I cherish it to the point of my chest aching. It is, after all, words that sum up half of my ultimate passion - theatre. Words are jewels to me. Diamonds, in fact.

Words are often my only vice and sometimes, heartbreakingly, they go unheard. I, who have witnessed such crimes of nature as psychological ailments (which, at thirteen years of age, seem to be ignored based on the fractured ideology that children can't suffer as Lear did), cry out in vain. These poems and desperate prose decompose and combust as soon as they are meekly uttered. They fly from my mouth like roses but wilt and lose their fragrance as soon as they reach assisting ears. And then I have to sit below the towering dark forms of the owners of dominance, those who are "adults", and wonder why they are gaping mindlessly at my pain, blind, dumb and dense, ironically powerless and untouched by my heavy, black despair. This has led me to three suicide attempts in my life.

So I resign to what I said earlier. Actions can speak louder than words. At times. But I am not one to conform.

Evidently, the only way I am heard is if I put my neck through a bootlace on a third-floor bathroom.

Tears are words. Self-inflicted wounds are words. Suicide attempts are words. And other bodily afflictions are words. Bruises I was given along my back by certain figures of authority made me want to tear off my clothes to a very public audience and cry, holler, shriek "Look at me, Look at this, Look Look Look!" And these strangers pass by with blank, expressionless faces, like they're wearing masks that have been hollowed out by maggots. These blogs, these letters to deceased rock stars, playwrights and poets, these messages to Gabriel, angel of messages, I only hope will reach the eyes, ears and hearts of the compassionate souls left on this globe.

After all, words are all we have.


Now I must apologise for the overload of passion in this blog post. You, reader (whoever you are), will find that is a recurring theme with me. I am an actor. My voice is eager to change with every post. I am likely to alter between moods and motivations, dance with different characters and states of mind, but never will I lack passion. These online letters, addressed to Gabriel the messenger angel, may reach a few eyes, but will never fail to move the heart of God. Having met him, having received him, however vainly or superficially, I know he's there - the only person and the only thing who has never let me down. My comforter, my all in all. When words fail, I have my God. And that is all, really :)

Prologue

So I'm your average nutcase.

While the term "average" is debatable, I will not bother to argue as my sleeping patterns have been rather sporadic of late and I am lacking in energy to do so. You have to have the motivation for these things.

I write to any eager eyes. But any fragile minds, be warned. I do not plan to hold back in these posts. For more than a tragic young woman with a history of mental health issues both past and present, I am an actress. A child of God, a survivor of psychosis, a Prima Donna, a painter, a poet, a playwright, a politician, amongst many other things, though not necessarily things that begin with 'p' - these are the many things that supposedly define me.

And as a young lady who possesses a raging, white-hot desire to spit back at the world that has so savagely injustified her, I choose (albeit influenced by the advice of a doctor) to attack back with what limited vocabulary I own - through the pretentious and self-absorbed act of melodramatic internet blogging.

You see, this is where I get the "nutcase" label.


By the way, Hi Joanna :P