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The Shape of an Attempt
Every artist knows the frustration of seeing an idea diminish as it reaches the page. Perhaps people are no different. Before judging another's words or actions, we might first ask a quieter question: What are they trying to express?
During a conversation over lunch, a particular question arose.
Should a person curse?
Someone at the table admitted that they cursed quite frequently. I myself have certainly been guilty of it from time to time. The important point, however, was that it was no longer a behaviour they wished to cultivate. In my younger years, I would often have agreed with that sentiment, though I was usually met with disagreement by the company I kept. Together we arrived at the thought that cursing is, in some sense, disrespectful toward oneself.
Why?
Because to curse is often to undermine the very point you are trying to make.
To know what you mean is difficult. To then find the words is harder still. And to communicate those words in such a way that another person truly understands what you have experienced may be one of the most difficult things we ever attempt.
How could another person ever fully know your inner world? How could they experience what you have experienced? Communication is, by its very nature, incomplete.
If this is true, then ought we not make every effort to choose our words carefully? If we genuinely wish to be understood, should we not do our best to construct our thoughts with precision? In that sense, I do believe that both ourselves and others are served when we seek language worthy of what we are trying to express.
Yet something else occurred to me. Perhaps the act of cursing is not inherently the point at all. Perhaps, despite its bluntness and lack of sophistication, it is still an honest attempt to express something that exceeds language. And an honest attempt is almost always preferable to silence.
What if, instead of seeing only the curse word, we learned to see the attempt beneath it? What if we held ourselves to a higher standard of speech while extending greater generosity toward the speech of others? What if, behind vulgar words, there was not simply vulgarity, but a person sincerely struggling to express something they could not yet articulate?
This, I realised, is not really a reflection about cursing. It is a reflection about people.
How often do we judge another person by what they manage to express, rather than by what they are genuinely trying to express?
Perhaps the truth does not always lie in what a person says or does, but somewhere beneath it. To witness another person trying ought to invite investigation before judgement.
For judgement is easy and understanding rarely is.
How could we ever know exactly what another person is striving toward? How could we know with certainty what another truly desires?
Do we even know this about ourselves?
Every artist understands this frustration. What we imagine and what finally appears upon the paper are never the same.
Every painting falls short. Every sentence falls short. Every piece of music falls short.
With every word I write, I know that I have failed, at least in part, to communicate what I truly wished to say.
Reality always exceeds expression.
There is an old saying:
“You will never find that which you seek, for the gods kept immortality for themselves.”
Perhaps this is true of creation itself.
What we hold in our imagination can never be perfectly realised here on earth. We may come astonishingly close. But those who create know the quiet disappointment of recognising that the finished work is not quite what they had seen.
If this is true of art, might it also be true of people?
Do we not judge others through the lens of our own experience?
The person who loves football judges the one who loves ballet. The one who loves ballet judges the football supporter in return. Each mistakes difference for deficiency.
Would we judge a child who is learning to walk? Probably not.
We understand that the stumbling is not the point. The attempt is.
So why are we so reluctant to grant the same generosity to one another?
And why are we so unwilling to grant it to ourselves?
Perhaps the next time we are tempted to judge another person, we should first ask a quieter question:
What are they trying to express?
For it may be that behind imperfect words, imperfect actions, and imperfect lives, there exists a person doing the very best they can to bring something true into the world.
