The Wordsmith Sutras – was written by me in 2009 in the form of 20 one page sutras in imitation of Bacon’s Essays. Koel did the first review and Sucharita did the second review. Now we have next one – from Isabel and David. All the three are more or less comments rather than formal review. However, I feel that all the 3 ‘reviews’ illuminate the sutras, meaning that the thread is doing its work well: to make the light burn brighter and stronger. The Wordsmith Sutras can be downloaded free from here
I was fascinated, firstly, to discover the actual meaning of the word ‘sutra’ – it is a word known in the West, but I hadn’t realised that it meant a connecter and indeed a connection. It’s a lovely idea to think of experiences as a necklace, though I have to admit that there are some ‘gems’ on mine that I’d rather turn to the back, so they’re less easy for me and others to see. However, I would still know they were there, and I suppose that’s the point, or at least part of it – they would be linked to other experiences via the thread that represents my life. Lovely. (Incidentally, my husband noted the phonetic similarity of ‘sutra’ with ‘suture’ – and they do seem to come from the same Indo-European root. Connections can be made in more than one way!)
First Sutra. You must have read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass? – see particularly Humpty Dumpty on the subject of words: he uses them to mean what he wants them to mean (‘glory’ means ‘a nice knock-down argument’, for example) but pays them extra when he wants them to do more work, finds verbs to be worse behaved than other parts of speech and says the question is ‘which is to be master’. (http://sabian.org/looking_glass6.php) I’m also reminded of something I read about Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, about whom nobody has a good word to say these days, although he won three elections so plenty of people must have liked him at some point. He is a very proficient public speaker and can rouse crowds with stirring oratory, but if, half an hour after his speech, you were to ask someone who had cheered and applauded during it, what it was about, they wouldn’t be able to tell you. Unlike Humpty Dumpty, who gave words additional meanings, Blair strips words of meaning.
Fourth Sutra. My husband, a maths lecturer at Strathclyde University, says that this is spot on!
Fifth Sutra. The sexualisation of society is, I think, a real problem, because it depersonalises sex and divorces it from love. Sex between two people who love each other and are committed to each other is one of the most beautiful things on earth (and cannot be unnatural, even if the partners are of the same sex: it is the love and commitment that create the beauty).The use of sex to sell things degrades both sex and the object sold.
Sixth Sutra. This is the one where we might fall out! How do you know that a mother, two generations back, did not need yoga or antidepressants? Two generations back, many people were not interested in what women needed or wanted. I remember my grandmother telling me that ‘no one had painful periods when she was a girl’ – but back then, nobody discussed such a thing, because a) it related to menstruation, which it was socially unacceptable to mention and b) it was a women’s issue, which meant it was not considered important by the medical establishment. For centuries women were considered not fully human, chattels, less important – and in some places this goes on even today. Women, like men, need social and intellectual fulfilment; childcare is the most important job anyone – man or woman – can do, and it is very rewarding in many ways, but an intelligent woman will find it every bit as unstimulating intellectually as will an intelligent man. A mother is integral to a family but so is a father – a father who provides for all his child’s material needs but spends no time caring for his child is a bad father.
This also relates to your point in the eighteenth sutra – the job of rearing the next 100% of humanity is the job of the current 100% of humanity, not 50%! There are insect species in which the female will eat the male after mating (sometimes even during mating): saying that childrearing is only women’s work is degrading to both sexes as it reduces the male to a mere sperm-donor with no other valuable contribution to make – not even nourishment of the female!
It is, I think, also worth noting that, certainly in the West, the traditional masculine role also no longer exists. The rules are being re-written for both sexes and actually, it is men who are slower to change – all the statistics show that, where both parents work full-time, men do less by way of childcare and housework than women. Housework is very boring: this is why I practically never do it (to the despair of my husband!), but it needs to be done. If both parents are contributing to the family income, surely both should clean?
Seventh Sutra. You’re absolutely right, children are a privilege, not a right. However, having children is a very deep-seated human need, and when it doesn’t happen, it is very painful. Many women put off having children not because of the three C’s, but because they want to wait until they have found the right man. I cannot believe this is really so wrong, as it ties in with so many other things you say; children from broken homes being more likely to commit crimes, for example. If putting off children until the relationship is right means fewer broken homes, that has to be a good thing.
Ninth Sutra. We recently came across a wonderful quote about the use of statistics, criticising those who use them “as a drunk man uses a lamp-post: for support, not illumination.” (And yes, I know I did precisely that above!)
Twelfth Sutra. Again, this comment comes mostly from my husband, who points out that numbers are at least honest and that their interior logic resists the lies that they are used for. Yes, numbers can be used to deceive and manipulate, to create superstitions and build castles in the air – but anyone with mathematical training will be able to see through this. The best way to escape being a prisoner of arithmetic is to learn the language and the logic of numbers so they no longer intimidate one!
Fourteenth Sutra. I think one of the saddest things about modern life is the reduction of food to mere fuel – something that can be eaten now, no matter how nasty it is, for a quick fat-and-calorie ‘hit’, or filled with preservatives and artificial products like hydrogenated fats and kept, sometimes for years, until needed. Food and drink are a necessity, but should also be a pleasure, and looking after yourself, though important, should never be an end in itself. (I do realise this is a very privileged Western perspective and I am somewhat uncomfortable about it…)
Seventeenth Sutra. I feel something similar to this cognitive disconnect very keenly whenever in America (I don’t go very often, but my brother lives in West Virginia). America looks very familiar to me, as I have seen so many American films and TV series, but it is not familiar – it is not a country or a society that I know well – and the disconnect between how it looks and how it feels is very unsettling. That’s just one personal example. Why are ‘they’ (politicians?) so keen to say that things are not what they are? – is it because we want them to, or because they want to believe it themselves? If we do want them to, why then are we so keen not to believe them? I think there’s a PhD thesis in that! – I certainly don’t have the answers.
Eighteenth Sutra. I’ve commented on much of this elsewhere. However, it is worth noting that ‘job’ does not necessarily equal ‘economic activity’, either for men or for women. It would be nice, though, if the most valuable economic activities were the most highly paid. Cleaners would be richer than bankers, and I can’t see that being a bad thing!
I hope I haven’t given the impression that I disagree with most of what you’ve written, because I don’t. The task is to find a way to live honestly, in touch with what is really there rather than with the lies it would be convenient for us (or for others to have us) believe. No doubt different people in different cultures will make different mistakes about what is really there – they may seize the same thread in a tangle by different ends – but I find it encouraging how many of the same truths we can dimly see the outline of!
My husband also wants me to add a few lines from one of his favourite poets:
… Though truth and falsehood be
Near twins, yet truth a little elder is.
Be busy to seek her, believe me this,
He’s not of none, or worst, that seeks the best.
To adore, or scorn an image, or protest
May all be bad; doubt wisely; in strange way
To stand inquiring right is not to stray.
To sleep, or run wrong is…
John Donne (1572-1631), Satire III.
Makes a change from Shakespeare, anyway. And I take it that the greatest wordsmith of Bengal is Tagore? – I keep meaning to pick up a translation so I can quote some at you, but life has, as so often, got in the way of good intentions…
Ms. Isabel Stainsby and Dr David Pritchard from Glasgow. Isabel is Wordsmith’s English language advisor and her husband Dr Pritchard is a mathematician.
