Alena Graedon

Sometimes the best way out of darkness is into it.

Words don__ always work. Sometimes they come up short. Conversations can lead to conflict. There are failures of diplomacy. Some differences, for all the talk in the world, remain irreconcilable. People make empty promises, go back on their word, say things they don__ believe. But connection, with ourselves and others, is the only way we can live.

Words, then, are born of worlds. But they also take us places we can__ go: Constantinople and Mars, Valhalla, the Planet of the Apes. Language comes from what we__e seen, touched, loved, lost. And it uses knowable things to give us glimpses of what__ not. The Word, after all, is God.

Language may have limits. But it isn__ just a dim likeness in a mirror. Yes, gestures, glances, touches, taps on walls mean something. So do silences. But sometimes the word is the thing. The bridge. Sometimes we only know what we feel once it__ been said. Words may be daughters of the earth instead of heaven. But they__e not dim. And even in the faintest shimmer, there is light.

People become so obsessed with the future, they make it up.

To create a word is simple. But to create a world _ to think _ that__ hard.

I found that reading gave me a certain relief _ one form of escapism that seemed safe, and maybe more than safe. I felt saner _ less fragmented- after reading for an hour.location 3234

The secretary of education recently unveiled an initiative for curriculums to place more emphasis on history and language. Within the decade, proficiency in at least three languages will be required of all American schoolchildren by graduation. And along with its other recommendations, the CDC has issued a promulgation that every U.S. citizen __nplug_ for at least two hours each day.location 6374

Why do you think people stopped reading? We read to connect with other minds. But why read when you're busy writing, describing the fine-grained flotsam of your own life. Compulsively recording every morsel you eat, that you're cold, or, I don't know, heartbroken by a football game. An endless stream flowing to an audience of everyone and no one.

Reflection can be its own reward.

But maybe because I'm from a part of the country where there are more meth labs than drive-throughs, anything harder than cough syrup always makes me nervous.

I wanted to do it once. Be a writer. Now I'm near 70, and the only thing I have to show for it is dictionary entries. Don't get me wrong -- I'm incredibly proud of it all. But let me say this, and I'll say it just once: don't fool yourself into thinking you're just on a detour as you sail home for Ithaca. A little pit stop, if you like, with the Lotus-Eaters or Calypso. There's no Athena interceding on your behalf. No guarantee you'll eventually arrive. If there's something you really want in life -- especially if it's something that scares you, or you think you don't deserve -- you have to go after it and do it now. Or in not very long you'll be right: you won't deserve it.

In truth, it was also by design: as much as I loved my mother, she wasn't often the person I sought for comfort in hard times. She disapproved tacitly of crying.

We both think love (and language) are interesting but taffylike diversions: soft, simple, perhaps a little salty. If either one takes over your life, you're an ass.

Language also acts like love in form.

What if, right now, as we__e immolating language, we__e doing away with ourselves? Maybe we__e regressed. The skills we once used for survival _ scattered attention, diffuse concentration _ have been adapted to finding glowing dots on screens, skimming pop-ups, beams, emails, video streams.