Specialization be damned

Specialization be damned.  In his own language he made people laugh.  And it was so easy for his friends to laugh at his jokes; they swam in them as though in water, and the water bubbled and frothed and rollicked as they dipped in and out.  Where was I then?  Well, I was laughing too, laughing with them as best I could, swimming alongside them and playing with them in the water of their laughter, the water of what made them laugh, this strange, foreign water.  Never had I imagined that learning how to swim could be so infectious, that a talent or a skill could be passed on from one to the other, rubbed off on another, as it were, like a cold or a bad day.  Not until one of them splashed me, who was cautious to get wet at first, from the sidelines and got me thoroughly wet, drenched from head to foot.  Then I learned suddenly, as the coolness of the water suddenly teaches you a thing or two, and not only about coolness, that for some tongues it is not required that you become equipped with a special tongue, that you learn to move it in just this way, with this accent, with these rolls and these taps on the roof of the mouth.  It is only necessary that you have a tongue, if not a tongue then a mouth and breath, if not a mouth and breath then some preunderstanding of our human situation; a basic, everyday human tongue, a basic, everyday human mouth, a basic, everyday capacity to take in and exhale breath, a basic understanding before understanding, always-already understanding, with which we are given to understand the basic charge of things, their tonalities, the givenness of things, their thatness or suchness.  Basic as in the child can perform these maneuvers of the tongue, can mouth and breathe with the rest, with the best of them, can understand in that manner prior to understanding, as well, with the best of them, with the rest of them.  More basic still as in alive, so simply the tongue of the living, the mouth and breath of the living, the preunderstanding of the living as living, as sharing–life.  We shared this tongue as the living share the need to nourish themselves and feed on something, shared it easily once we realized this fundamental community and commonality, shared it like we shared the cool water covering our bodies, because of our willingness to dive in or our getting splashed somehow or other. 

            Why the hesitation to get wet, then?  And why say, as was said at the start, that in HIS language he made people laugh, that in HIS language it was made easy to laugh?  Why all this talk of sidelines and dividers between one atmosphere of laughter and another when in all reality, the one we share, have in common, the one that concerns US, concerns us most at least, there are no such separating lines and no such borders?  In ALL reality, the reality WE share, there is only sharing, spread like easy laughter everywhere, in froth and foam and bubbling, rollicking water.  Well, let us not condemn the man or woman who is not so easy to get wet, who steps with caution in all foreign damp zones, misses the swimming back home, and stays quiet, shy or a bit awkward or befuddled, when in the company of those who do not speak his ‘language,’ that particular tongue with its skill and deftness in the circumstances; it is rather difficult to admit that we are getting along just fine, splendidly, that we understand and know one another at least here, that we share something fundamental, when each of us does not know a lick of what the other is saying.  And how to we admit it, what means do we take in admitting such a thing, what means other than simply laughing or crying on, continuing what you’ve been doing, if you have been up to it, or if you were carried off into it somehow, say, if you were splashed from the sides, as I was, called into it as the one thing needful, the one thing I was capable of doing at that time, and therefore the one thing I HAD to do, a specialization in my lover’s mother tongue–for he was a lover, at least for a time he became a lover–be damned.