Language and Punishment

 Hello, 

I happened to watch a documentary called 'Wisdom of Trauma' which moved me. It talks about how people take on addictions in the form of work, drugs, tobacco, sex, video games etc to feel better. People try to escape this reality which hurts them. The underlying intention of 'wanting to feel good/better' is what caught my attention.

The escape that we choose, in my case I'd say I consume social media and also take writing as an escape from the reality. While this is unhealthy, but not demonised like other addictions, say smoking or drinking. I have been witness to what these addictions can do. And I realise why is it difficult to let go of these habits of escape. Help, addiction is but a cry for help. Next time, you use statements like 'I hate people who smoke/drink/do drugs', maybe think again. We tend to do self harm in different ways, but what we are in need of is help. I guess this is what it means to hate the sin and not the sinner.

The other profound message of the documentary was the power of our bodies in healing ourselves. The way how few emotions like 'anger' are disregarded as being useless and an emotion that needs to be shunned. I found myself in many people of the documentary. I realised that to be able to completely heal, I need to repair my relationship with food. I haven't really got to know food I think, and this exercise will not be easy given by body-image issues. But I know that I need to this for myself, to feel better, to feel human.

I hope you get to watch it(leave a comment if you aren't able to watch it). I hope it answers questions about your healing. Our addictions are a sign for help, and not a reason for punishment. The childhood hurt, trauma, scars that we carry impacts our adult life. The prisoners held up in prisons across the world have a story of hurt and how it went unhealed which played a role in them committing a crime. Our society needs to do better. I cannot help but believe in the goodness of the people. We are inherently good, even the anger that we feel is good. We are taught to push the anger under the rug when we should actually be facing it. I wish I knew how to deal with anger.

We communicate with each other and ourselves, and most often we use language to do so. I cannot emphasize the impact of language in our life. Shame and guilt are often invoked when someone disagrees with our line of thought or what we perceive to be 'good'.

Often times, people end up ridiculing the ones who seem to be different instead of making an effort to understanding them. That difference can be in terms of race, religion, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability etc. The greatest tragedy is considering this difference as a crime/sin or a fruit of a crime/sin. For example, in South Asia the actions of a person are said to be the cause for someone's disability, present life or past life actions. The ostracization of the disabled community is quite open as the infrastructure of the places doesn't make their lives easier. And I haven't even mentioned how disability related terms are used in negative circumstances. 

A similar pattern can be seen other areas of differences too. The insensitive words have become so ingrained in our normal parlance that we hardly give a thought about it. Our words can be insensitive towards humans and also non-human persons. 

And I notice that oppression is often potrayed as wilful service. May it be the oppression of lower caste, lower class, women(unrealistic wife and mother duties imposed), animals(how many text books have 'cows give us milk' when it is certainly not the case, humans take away the milk. Similarly, hen gives eggs is actually hens lays eggs and I can go on) Language legitimises oppression in these instances. The same is the case with forest provides us with this and that, and so we'll exploit it till it disappears from the face is this planet. 

On the flip side, I do not notice people using language to express their love, gratitude, peace and other positive emotions. Let the love be known, tell the person that you love them, everyday. Language is the only vehicle that can bridge the greatest of distance of time and space. It can also create the distance.

So write your love letters, eternalize your love. 

I hope I better myself in the area of using language to build bonds. And I hope when someone needs help I do not end up punishing them. There will be days when I will be on the receiving ends( maybe I already had a couple of those days) and I have a duty to break this chain.

Thanks for reading