I was talking to the Moon. Trying to get it to answer some basic questions. What’s your shape and why do you have such a size? Does the dust feel like I think it would? Does the sunshine ache at certain angles?
A clever man blunted by a foreign language. Makes it so this clever man can’t judge people quite so harshly. He doesn’t pick up on their hidden motives or their questionable judgment and just accepts, trusts, admires, hopes. These are the greatest people. Once back in his own land, it becomes about how the dance of deception has permeated everything around - like water slowly seeping through sand.
When you speak the language you speak the culture. When your culture is dark and murky and recessing to the swamp right before your eyes - despite its hallowed mythological privilege - it is a hard thing to pick up on, as the culture will do everything it can to reassure itself of its greatness. It will trumpet its symbols and successes and describe its utter uniqueness and exceptional quality. It will scorn fact for feeling, somehow resigning itself to the deeply troubling and very easy conclusion that hedonistic logic is the highest and most sound form of logic: if it feels right, feels good, seems good - it is good. So the language bends in strange ways and takes bizarre inflections and the citizens position themselves in opposing fortresses waiting for the last good day.
