Oh, the Insanity.

My mind has been rather at ease the past few weeks which usually isn't normal. I speak more Italian these days than English and am getting closer to my goal: being deficient in both languages. Speaking of languages while speaking in languages, is there other ways to speak? Let's not get started too soon with the damn questions that really don't have answers. Which brings me back to truth. But I guess instead of bouncing off these walls I should try to give some concrete information about where I live, what I do, blah blah blah. It helps us understand, I know, and it's fun sometimes. Minute details, basic lifeless facts, stuff to talk about, stuff that doesn't worry us. Time to get back into the pool for a little bit:

June 1 was day one of homelessness. Me and a good friend had decided that instead of looking for places to stay after his contract was up that we would sleep in a medieval castle a few kilometers to the south of Florence. We had been there before and it has a great panoramic view. It's under restoration but a simple fence hop was all it took to reap the benefits of the past. I was at a party last night (beware that Italian parties are a little less drunk than American parties) listening to many a heated conversation. Apparently Italians either talk about politics or soccer, and tonight it was the former's turn. Florence, albeit a beautiful city to locals and tourists alike, has its share of problems (as every city has had since the conception of a city). One of the more intellectual ones is its connection to the past. The former capital of the Rinascimento (Renaissance for you Frenchies) hasn't really changed the past 500 years, which doesn't seem to bother anyone.

Where are we going? What is progress? Aren't we just trying to solve problems that we have had forever? Seems like we are going in circles, solving and creating problems as we solve them, leaving me to believe that there is no point, no "end", no "finish line" which begs me to continue to ask the question: why? Faith is a cop-out, but that's old news.

Needful to say we didn't stay at the castle last night, instead we stayed at my buddy's apartment. The next day we had to leave, technically that night we had to leave, but the walk was long and we were in the center until late. So we went to school, to begin our squatting experience. Did that for about a week or so, waking up at 10 to 6 so that the cleaning lady didn't see us. It's funny, I didn't feel a drop in class nor a guilt for doing something deemed "illegal." I guess we really can talk ourselves out of things that we talk ourselves in to. It was fun, hanging out at school, yelling "honey I'm home" as we walked through the door, asking our guests to call next time before they stopped by. We had a big mosquito net and some couch cushions and slept as good as we had ever slept, maybe even better. So shelter is important, but not houses.

After that time we were going to get kicked out of school. It was going to close for old students and the door (to the upstairs lounge) was going to be locked. So I emailed the second Italian family in via Romana and asked if their grandmother would host me, since we had talked about it in the past in passing. The grandmother was busy but the family itself said of course. I now sleep in their living room on a cot, wake up early, get three meals, and walk around my favorite city. There's nothing to it: they are sweet, real people, enjoying themselves just like I am. Nothing different, no language or culture barrier, just more of the same. It's great, I've learned more Italian the past week than I have the last few months, which is more my fault than Italia's.

Finished my internship and took my egyptology test. Oral exam in front of the teacher, she asked me questions (all in Italian) about the history and then I read some hieroglyphics. Then we chatted about Italian and American institutions and grading systems, she was very helpful and kind. I got a 25/30 which is a B. Not bad for a 12 unit class. For my internship I had to write a report. Me being me, I went the "philosophical" road, but I have a hard time understanding that excuse. Does it mean that it's wordy? That it makes people think? That it isn't straightforward? I'm still dealing with this idea of definition, of classification, the breaking down and reorganization of knowledge in order to understand it. It's really fun, not philosophical, just fun. What's in a name? That thought pondered me in class a few weeks ago, and this is what I came up with (first in Italian, than my translation):

Perché nominare l'amore?
Poi per saperlo manipolare?
Poi che diventa dopo che è stato capito?
Se ne va? Quindi meglio non sapere?
Più puro, cioè la verità? È tutto e non si sa?
Si sa che non si sa? Eccola? Capire di non capire?

Why give love a name?
To be able to manipulate it?
And what comes of it after its understood?
Does it go away? Therefore it's better to not know?
Most pure, that is to say like truth? it's everything and no one knows?
Do we know we don't know? Is that it? Understand that we don't understand?

For my internship I had to write a report, a summary of what I did. I took the "philosophical" approach, whatever that means, here's a taste:

Language really is a funny thing, using muscles to manipulate air, making noises with our bodies to convey some sort of thing that we call an idea, giving it meaning, and then hoping that another collection of ideas understands that meaning. Not understanding seems to be a problem, and so we study language, for as much as it interests us, to be able to be, which to me seems rather strange. I guess it’s not that funny after all.

I am taken aback by something Gloria Venturini (before she was my internship tutor) said to us last year in Italian class. “Only 5% of a language is grammar. The other 95% percent depends on inflection, pronunciation, tone of voice, body language, eye contact, etc. Only 5%, and you study it so much.” And it made me think about language in a broader context than mere words. It brought out the idea of meaning, perception, and thought which hit me like a gothic circus. About a year later I sit and write about language and what I learned at the Regione (Region), and that thought cannot escape me yet. Or maybe it is me that keeps it hostage against its will.

I don’t really have much to say – which is a lie – about what I did, what I experienced, and how I know it is going to help me as I continue to float on this speck of dust that we call Earth in this big vast open beautiful obscure nothingness that we call the Universe. Capitalising words is interesting, using a pretty basic power scheme: bigger means stronger, which means better. We pretend as if there is only one “earth” and only one “universe.” I guess we could break them down like that if we wanted to, just like we break down a language. Words are nouns, verbs, prepositions, direct and indirect objects, adverbs, adjectives. You have active voice, passive voice, and probably something in between (even if it hasn’t been discovered yet). Language, as linguists say, is a finite set of tools with an infinite number of permutations. We can say whatever we want as long as it makes some sense, and if it doesn’t make sense we call it poetry. And in some weird way it starts to make sense, just not in the way we are use to, of course, until we are used to it.

There seems to be some sort of basic infrastructure, grammar, that tries to keep the language together. “Want eight by love for,” doesn’t make any sense, at least not on its own, which brings us to another topic: context. I’ve learned that both in Italian and English one word can have more than 50 meanings, all depending on the subject being spoken about. What is intriguing is most of these “relative” definitions are not united, that is to say, that for the word “identity” there are thousands upon thousands of definitions, but none of them really do a great job summing everything up. So we can’t find a dozen words that describe it. We can find volumes of books, although I’m convinced at times that more words bring less meaning to them.

Language is a great game; a play on words. Dancing, singing, shouting, whispering, chatting, being serious, cracking jokes, talk’n slang wid da peeps, speaking eloquently in the presence of the queen, reading every letter and giving it a moment of life. Just thinking about reading these words, what meanings will be imposed, how they will be pronounced in the heads of a few, how we will understand it, and how that will put us at ease.

I think that that is good for an introduction.

As for now I go to the beach on the 21st or 22nd and then make my way back to San Francisco via Dublin on the 25th, should be back on the 26th. Numbers are great too, and for the past few days I have been looking at myself. But really, looking at my limbs, moving my fingers, trying to understand how that works, trying to understand it completely, trying to figure out where my vision starts, and I don't feel it in my eyes, I feel it towards the middle of my brain. It's a great exercise, very intriguing, something we can all do whenever we want. We look past the obvious. Men are men and women are women. We have more things in common than we do different but our differences are shoved down our throats. George Carlin got it right once again. We have arms, legs, heads, brains, bones, etc., but the obvious isn't given as much respect, why is that? It doesn't make any sense to me. I think I started another group email. Truth, can't forget about truth. If there are an infinite number of definitions how can their be just one? I feel like I'm missing something, imposing my values on all of you, the reciprocal. The insanity. Oh, the insanity.

-Anthony