Let’s talk about language. How something as simple as language was the determining factor of humanity’s entire fate in the movie "Arrival" (if you haven't seen it I'd highly recommend). There is something beautiful about language that ironically goes unspoken of, or unappreciated, or maybe simply unnoticed.

I find it incredibly sad to think that I'm unable to communicate with every single soul on this planet. There are barriers—language being the main one. It's sad that so much knowledge is being lost in translation, or lack there of. However, it would be more upsetting to have a supreme language, one that we all speak. So much culture would be lost, so much history gone. I never want to say, "Oh there used to be Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Serbian, English..." there's an unidentifiable beauty in a language. For example, how Spanish speakers speak of a woman giving birth — “dar a luz” —which directly translates as "to give to light."

To give to light, it almost sounds like a power only gods could have, to create something as magnificent as light but here Spanish speakers describe women giving birth with such words. It's beautiful. The Spanish language also has another neat example: “ganar la vida” — which translates as “to win at life,” as opposed to us English speakers who say "to make a living". Spanish speakers use the verb ganar (to win), to describe how they will live their life. Innately they have it instilled in them from birth that they will win at life, not simply make a living of it.

It amazes me how simple everyday sayings in translation can carry so much more emotion purely depending on the language. I think of French and how the French tell someone they miss them. They say, “tu me manques” — this translates as “you are missing from me.” Wow. The difference is slight but it is so definite. “Tu me manques” suggests that one cannot be complete without the other. It is more than a yearn for someone, an “I miss you,” it is an acknowledgment that without this one person, it’s impossible to be whole.

There's a perspective that a language indirectly carries that holds so much weight, so much meaning culturally. I'd never wish to lose that, merely to understand it. All of it. I want to know why some things are so sacred to others. I want to understand the thought process of someone who grew up with their first language being different from my own; who grew up in a location whose rules I don't understand. More than anything I simply wish to be able to converse with any and every soul regardless of the language barrier, or the distance.

Imagine how much could be learned, the insight that could be gained. It’d be eye-opening, life changing, kind of realizations that would be happening. The sharing of stories is how beliefs are even founded in the first place: the many stories of Jesus, the discoveries of Christopher Columbus, the inventions of Thomas Edison. These stories, these communications transpire knowledge and growth. If we could all communicate better or at least care enough to try, maybe we wouldn't have to see the future to save the world (another "Arrival" reference, sorry for the big hint. Still go see it. It's amazing.).