The man across from me thinks I’m a captain of industry am. I didn’t pay attention, I nodded yes when I had to shake no, I grunted in agreement when I should have growled in the negative, and that’s how the misunderstanding started.
We’ve been talking for ten minutes. That is, he’s been talking to me for ten minutes during this blissful drink with living beings in a real existing building. The man is as happy as I am today and he has decided in good spirits to start mirroring his fellow men, so that he can show that he is on the same page with them.
For him, mirroring doesn’t mean adopting behavior from them, it means imposing his own situation on them out of sheer niceness. He is a ‘captain of industry’ and now I am one of them too.
Everyone has to reinvent themselves after being locked up in the house for over a year and a half. Last week – it was on the news – a drunk man in Turkey accidentally went looking for himself: he was wanted by the police because his wife had reported him missing. When he encountered sleuthing police officers in the woods, he decided to join their search until he noticed they were calling his own name: “I’m here!” he shouted.
For example, nowadays we all walk around during gatherings and receptions, in meetings and at parties: it is all one collective search for ourselves without knowing exactly who we are missing. Where am I? The man opposite me searches with me for a moment. “Are you involved in that merger?” he asks. No, I say, that’s someone else, but he’s not listening anymore.
You also have to learn to talk again, I conclude, while I nod at random and shake no. It would be nice of me if I in turn mirrored my fellow human beings, but I have trouble adopting the tone from them. Which style register and language register are they in, which vocabulary belongs to them? Are they pedantic, formal, flirty? Are they kidding?
I practiced at home. When I received a business message from the municipality, I memorized the text to have on hand when efficient use of language is required of me. “Pre-announcement zoning plan umbrella review zoning industrial noise business park.” Say that again? “Pre-announcement zoning plan umbrella review zoning industrial noise business park.”
If you were a philosopher, you could call it a language crisis. A speech cramp. Got so bewildered in the last year and a half that you can’t say a word anymore. I am so afraid of people’s words, says the poet Rilke. „Ich fürchte mich so vor der Menschen Wort./ Sie sprechen Alles so deutlich aus.” Suddenly people have nestled themselves again with their language between you and the world.
The man I’m listening to now seems to unexpectedly ask me a question. Something about corporate governance. “Sorry, I don’t know, it’s not my field,” I want to answer, but just as I want to say those words, I hear in my mind that they form a waltz. Sorry-I-don’t-know, ’tis-not-my field: tádada tádada, tádada tádada. In my imagination we grab each other and we waltz across the room, out. The sun shines, life lures, what’s stopping us? Just in time I swallow the waltz again.
I still can’t quite catch the tone of the conversation and I’m about to run out of registers. I don’t think this man and I are going to have an animated conversation today: I don’t seem to get much further than nodding and shaking. Thank God a woman is now strolling along and the man is addressing her tirelessly. ‘My friend here’, he doesn’t know my name, but he manages bravely, ‘my friend has tackled the problem of diversity energetically in his supervisory board.’
Now I have to say something. Fortunately, I just read a report on diversity: a higher education committee wrote about under-representation of “women and people from a background who do justice to diversity.” I’m just about to start talking about people-with-a-backgrounds who do justice to diversity when I see the woman looking at me like I’ve gone mad. “Since when do you have a supervisory board?”
“Oh, that’s in a manner of speaking,” I say. “It’s all more or less metaphorical and more or less metaphorical.” Now they both look glazed. Great, then I can get something to drink soon. It’s really nice to meet each other again in real life, but I still have to work on the conversations.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 5 October 2021
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 5, 2021
The man across from me thinks I’m a captain of industry am. I didn’t pay attention, I nodded yes when I had to shake no, I grunted in agreement when I should have growled in the negative, and that’s how the misunderstanding started.
We’ve been talking for ten minutes. That is, he’s been talking to me for ten minutes during this blissful drink with living beings in a real existing building. The man is as happy as I am today and he has decided in good spirits to start mirroring his fellow men, so that he can show that he is on the same page with them.
For him, mirroring doesn’t mean adopting behavior from them, it means imposing his own situation on them out of sheer niceness. He is a ‘captain of industry’ and now I am one of them too.
Everyone has to reinvent themselves after being locked up in the house for over a year and a half. Last week – it was on the news – a drunk man in Turkey accidentally went looking for himself: he was wanted by the police because his wife had reported him missing. When he encountered sleuthing police officers in the woods, he decided to join their search until he noticed they were calling his own name: “I’m here!” he shouted.
For example, nowadays we all walk around during gatherings and receptions, in meetings and at parties: it is all one collective search for ourselves without knowing exactly who we are missing. Where am I? The man opposite me searches with me for a moment. “Are you involved in that merger?” he asks. No, I say, that’s someone else, but he’s not listening anymore.
You also have to learn to talk again, I conclude, while I nod at random and shake no. It would be nice of me if I in turn mirrored my fellow human beings, but I have trouble adopting the tone from them. Which style register and language register are they in, which vocabulary belongs to them? Are they pedantic, formal, flirty? Are they kidding?
I practiced at home. When I received a business message from the municipality, I memorized the text to have on hand when efficient use of language is required of me. “Pre-announcement zoning plan umbrella review zoning industrial noise business park.” Say that again? “Pre-announcement zoning plan umbrella review zoning industrial noise business park.”
If you were a philosopher, you could call it a language crisis. A speech cramp. Got so bewildered in the last year and a half that you can’t say a word anymore. I am so afraid of people’s words, says the poet Rilke. „Ich fürchte mich so vor der Menschen Wort./ Sie sprechen Alles so deutlich aus.” Suddenly people have nestled themselves again with their language between you and the world.
The man I’m listening to now seems to unexpectedly ask me a question. Something about corporate governance. “Sorry, I don’t know, it’s not my field,” I want to answer, but just as I want to say those words, I hear in my mind that they form a waltz. Sorry-I-don’t-know, ’tis-not-my field: tádada tádada, tádada tádada. In my imagination we grab each other and we waltz across the room, out. The sun shines, life lures, what’s stopping us? Just in time I swallow the waltz again.
I still can’t quite catch the tone of the conversation and I’m about to run out of registers. I don’t think this man and I are going to have an animated conversation today: I don’t seem to get much further than nodding and shaking. Thank God a woman is now strolling along and the man is addressing her tirelessly. ‘My friend here’, he doesn’t know my name, but he manages bravely, ‘my friend has tackled the problem of diversity energetically in his supervisory board.’
Now I have to say something. Fortunately, I just read a report on diversity: a higher education committee wrote about under-representation of “women and people from a background who do justice to diversity.” I’m just about to start talking about people-with-a-backgrounds who do justice to diversity when I see the woman looking at me like I’ve gone mad. “Since when do you have a supervisory board?”
“Oh, that’s in a manner of speaking,” I say. “It’s all more or less metaphorical and more or less metaphorical.” Now they both look glazed. Great, then I can get something to drink soon. It’s really nice to meet each other again in real life, but I still have to work on the conversations.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 5 October 2021
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 5, 2021
The man across from me thinks I’m a captain of industry am. I didn’t pay attention, I nodded yes when I had to shake no, I grunted in agreement when I should have growled in the negative, and that’s how the misunderstanding started.
We’ve been talking for ten minutes. That is, he’s been talking to me for ten minutes during this blissful drink with living beings in a real existing building. The man is as happy as I am today and he has decided in good spirits to start mirroring his fellow men, so that he can show that he is on the same page with them.
For him, mirroring doesn’t mean adopting behavior from them, it means imposing his own situation on them out of sheer niceness. He is a ‘captain of industry’ and now I am one of them too.
Everyone has to reinvent themselves after being locked up in the house for over a year and a half. Last week – it was on the news – a drunk man in Turkey accidentally went looking for himself: he was wanted by the police because his wife had reported him missing. When he encountered sleuthing police officers in the woods, he decided to join their search until he noticed they were calling his own name: “I’m here!” he shouted.
For example, nowadays we all walk around during gatherings and receptions, in meetings and at parties: it is all one collective search for ourselves without knowing exactly who we are missing. Where am I? The man opposite me searches with me for a moment. “Are you involved in that merger?” he asks. No, I say, that’s someone else, but he’s not listening anymore.
You also have to learn to talk again, I conclude, while I nod at random and shake no. It would be nice of me if I in turn mirrored my fellow human beings, but I have trouble adopting the tone from them. Which style register and language register are they in, which vocabulary belongs to them? Are they pedantic, formal, flirty? Are they kidding?
I practiced at home. When I received a business message from the municipality, I memorized the text to have on hand when efficient use of language is required of me. “Pre-announcement zoning plan umbrella review zoning industrial noise business park.” Say that again? “Pre-announcement zoning plan umbrella review zoning industrial noise business park.”
If you were a philosopher, you could call it a language crisis. A speech cramp. Got so bewildered in the last year and a half that you can’t say a word anymore. I am so afraid of people’s words, says the poet Rilke. „Ich fürchte mich so vor der Menschen Wort./ Sie sprechen Alles so deutlich aus.” Suddenly people have nestled themselves again with their language between you and the world.
The man I’m listening to now seems to unexpectedly ask me a question. Something about corporate governance. “Sorry, I don’t know, it’s not my field,” I want to answer, but just as I want to say those words, I hear in my mind that they form a waltz. Sorry-I-don’t-know, ’tis-not-my field: tádada tádada, tádada tádada. In my imagination we grab each other and we waltz across the room, out. The sun shines, life lures, what’s stopping us? Just in time I swallow the waltz again.
I still can’t quite catch the tone of the conversation and I’m about to run out of registers. I don’t think this man and I are going to have an animated conversation today: I don’t seem to get much further than nodding and shaking. Thank God a woman is now strolling along and the man is addressing her tirelessly. ‘My friend here’, he doesn’t know my name, but he manages bravely, ‘my friend has tackled the problem of diversity energetically in his supervisory board.’
Now I have to say something. Fortunately, I just read a report on diversity: a higher education committee wrote about under-representation of “women and people from a background who do justice to diversity.” I’m just about to start talking about people-with-a-backgrounds who do justice to diversity when I see the woman looking at me like I’ve gone mad. “Since when do you have a supervisory board?”
“Oh, that’s in a manner of speaking,” I say. “It’s all more or less metaphorical and more or less metaphorical.” Now they both look glazed. Great, then I can get something to drink soon. It’s really nice to meet each other again in real life, but I still have to work on the conversations.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 5 October 2021
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 5, 2021
The man across from me thinks I’m a captain of industry am. I didn’t pay attention, I nodded yes when I had to shake no, I grunted in agreement when I should have growled in the negative, and that’s how the misunderstanding started.
We’ve been talking for ten minutes. That is, he’s been talking to me for ten minutes during this blissful drink with living beings in a real existing building. The man is as happy as I am today and he has decided in good spirits to start mirroring his fellow men, so that he can show that he is on the same page with them.
For him, mirroring doesn’t mean adopting behavior from them, it means imposing his own situation on them out of sheer niceness. He is a ‘captain of industry’ and now I am one of them too.
Everyone has to reinvent themselves after being locked up in the house for over a year and a half. Last week – it was on the news – a drunk man in Turkey accidentally went looking for himself: he was wanted by the police because his wife had reported him missing. When he encountered sleuthing police officers in the woods, he decided to join their search until he noticed they were calling his own name: “I’m here!” he shouted.
For example, nowadays we all walk around during gatherings and receptions, in meetings and at parties: it is all one collective search for ourselves without knowing exactly who we are missing. Where am I? The man opposite me searches with me for a moment. “Are you involved in that merger?” he asks. No, I say, that’s someone else, but he’s not listening anymore.
You also have to learn to talk again, I conclude, while I nod at random and shake no. It would be nice of me if I in turn mirrored my fellow human beings, but I have trouble adopting the tone from them. Which style register and language register are they in, which vocabulary belongs to them? Are they pedantic, formal, flirty? Are they kidding?
I practiced at home. When I received a business message from the municipality, I memorized the text to have on hand when efficient use of language is required of me. “Pre-announcement zoning plan umbrella review zoning industrial noise business park.” Say that again? “Pre-announcement zoning plan umbrella review zoning industrial noise business park.”
If you were a philosopher, you could call it a language crisis. A speech cramp. Got so bewildered in the last year and a half that you can’t say a word anymore. I am so afraid of people’s words, says the poet Rilke. „Ich fürchte mich so vor der Menschen Wort./ Sie sprechen Alles so deutlich aus.” Suddenly people have nestled themselves again with their language between you and the world.
The man I’m listening to now seems to unexpectedly ask me a question. Something about corporate governance. “Sorry, I don’t know, it’s not my field,” I want to answer, but just as I want to say those words, I hear in my mind that they form a waltz. Sorry-I-don’t-know, ’tis-not-my field: tádada tádada, tádada tádada. In my imagination we grab each other and we waltz across the room, out. The sun shines, life lures, what’s stopping us? Just in time I swallow the waltz again.
I still can’t quite catch the tone of the conversation and I’m about to run out of registers. I don’t think this man and I are going to have an animated conversation today: I don’t seem to get much further than nodding and shaking. Thank God a woman is now strolling along and the man is addressing her tirelessly. ‘My friend here’, he doesn’t know my name, but he manages bravely, ‘my friend has tackled the problem of diversity energetically in his supervisory board.’
Now I have to say something. Fortunately, I just read a report on diversity: a higher education committee wrote about under-representation of “women and people from a background who do justice to diversity.” I’m just about to start talking about people-with-a-backgrounds who do justice to diversity when I see the woman looking at me like I’ve gone mad. “Since when do you have a supervisory board?”
“Oh, that’s in a manner of speaking,” I say. “It’s all more or less metaphorical and more or less metaphorical.” Now they both look glazed. Great, then I can get something to drink soon. It’s really nice to meet each other again in real life, but I still have to work on the conversations.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 5 October 2021
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 5, 2021