Dear Jacques,
If this letter does not reach you, then it means that I may have come across some terrible misfortune between the time I started writing this letter and the time I finished it. However, if you are not reading this, then there wasn’t much point in my saying that first sentence. What I mean to say is that I hope you’re reading this. It doesn’t necessarily mean I have come across some terrible misfortune although I may have. What I mean to say is that, if you’re reading this, it means you’ve received this letter. Well, that’s obvious if you’re reading this…I haven’t started this out very well, have I?
Let me put it this way. I will assume that you’re reading this; otherwise there’s no point in saying anything about this flock of starlings that has built a nest in my beard. And I will assume that you will receive not only this letter but all the future ones I send to you. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t assume that since I haven’t written any of those yet obviously, and I wouldn’t want you to think, upon reading this, that there will be others soon arriving at your abode. I fully intend to send those letters, but one never knows what will happen in the future.Well, that’s not strictly true, I suppose. There are some things that we can know, for instance, if I plan to eat a carrot at lunch and I actually have a carrot, then I know what will happen in the future. I suppose one could argue that I can’t absolutely know I will eat a carrot at lunch because of unforeseen circumstances, such as my losing the carrot or someone else eating the carrot or the carrot turning into a turbine engine, but chances are that I will eat that carrot at lunch. Unfortunately, I don’t actually have a carrot so I don’t know what I will have for lunch, but you know what I mean.
It also seems to me that there are other reasons why you’re not reading this. You may have moved in the interim and not sent your forwarding address to your landlord or to the post office because of outstanding bills. I may have put the wrong address on the letter.The letter may have been lost by the post office, or even stuck to the inside of the mailbox in which I posted the letter because some scoundrel threw something sticky into the mailbox.
Even if you do receive this, how do I know that you understand exactly what I mean when I say certain things?Perhaps certain words have different connotations in your part of the world. Perhaps you don’t even understand some of the words I use and you’re too proud to say so.
Come to think of it, I’m not even positive that you speak and read English. Your name is Jacques, after all. Perhaps you speak only French, or perhaps a dialect of French. I know there are many French dialects all over the world, and have even heard that Quebecois films, when shown in France, have to have subtitles as the dialect/accent is very different. As someone I’ve never met and only a pen pal, you may very well get my letters translated by someone else, and then you write a letter and have it translated before it’s sent to me. You’ve never mentioned that you don’t speak English, but then you haven’t not never mentioned it either.
Suppose the person who translates the letter for you speaks English but doesn’t speak French or your version of French. The letter could very well go through various translations, from my variety of English to Mandarin to Tagalog to German to Swahili for all I know. How many chances are there for something to go wrong through that many translations? And how can we be sure that all those languages contain all the words we need to get our message across?I mean, the German word “zeitgeist” is a very wonderful and useful word that doesn’t have an exact translation in English.That’s why we use the word “zeitgeist”.So, when I just used it there, what happens when the word turns into Mandarin, and then what happens when it turns into Tagalog? And suppose the next version is German, does the word even look remotely the same? This is a very perplexing line of inquiry.
I’ve always wondered about the veracity of translations anyway. If I’m talking to someone who doesn’t speak English, and I’m trying to indicate my name, I might point to myself and say “William”, but the other person might conclude that whatever part of my body I happened to point to at the time was called a “William”.This may explain why, in England, the penis is colloquially referred to as a “willy”. However, they speak a variation of English over there, don’t they? Perhaps it comes from Old English. I don’t know. Linguistics isn’t really my area.
And then again, suppose the person who is translating this to you doesn’t want you to know certain things that I’ve said. I don’t know why that person would want to do that, but I’ve never known why people have certain motivations to do certain things such as watch auto racing or eat sushi. Perhaps your translator is embarrassed by the word “penis”. Perhaps you’re particularly annoyed by circular pedantic discussions and your translator knows that and has not even read the past few paragraphs.
So I have to assume that you’re reading this…but should I assume that? If no one reads this, was it ever written in the first place? Sort of a Zen letter question, I suppose. If you’re not reading this, and I’m not writing this, then what is it I’m actually re-reading now – a figment of my imagination? Or a product of my imagination? Or someone else’s?Am I dreaming? Am I part of your dream? Have I ever actually written to you before and have I ever even received a letter from you before? I fear that I can’t quite remember. This is getting far too complicated…
Truth, of course, is stranger than fiction. Things that actually happen would seem far too contrived and/or unlikely if it were put into a work of fiction. No one would believe it, which is why I write only non-fiction, and make sure that people know that I write only non-fiction and never fiction so that they don’t become confused by what I’m saying.I write only the truth because I want people to know how strange the world is and I don’t want them to get confused into thinking that I may be making anything up. Well, it’s just occurred to me that someone else who happens to read this letter might think this is fiction, given how odd it might seem to have a flock of starlings nesting in one’s beard.It might seem strange to someone who would have no idea that this is actually happening to me, so I’m not sure how to resolve that. All I can do is explain the story of how the starlings came to nest in my beard and I will get to that in a moment. But first of all, I have to re-read what I’ve written because I’m not absolutely sure that I’ve made myself completely clear and may have to clarify some points. Please wait for a moment while I go back and re-read. Hmmm, well, there was no need to say that, was there, because you wouldn’t actually wait for me to return to where I was on the page. Never mind.
I’m back, although I doubt you noticed that I’d gone. I’ve re-read my letter to this point and it’s occurred to me that throughout this entire letter, I was under the assumption that I would eventually finish this letter and send it to you, but I really have no reason to come to that conclusion. How do I know that I won’t be struck by lightning before I finish writing? It doesn’t seem likely but one never knows about such things. Well, one can sometimes know about such things. I mean, I’m inside my house and it’s a sunny day so I have no fear that I’m going to get struck by lightning but climate change is definitely happening so it’s a possibility, remote as it is. The occurrence of it happening is dictated by the laws of probability and, as we all know, well, as many of us know, the laws of probability sometimes conflict with what makes sense. We know that the Sun rises every day (well, in fact, the Earth turns to meet the Sun but you know what I mean, I hope) and say with absolute assurance that the Sun will rise again tomorrow but we really have no basis in fact to state that. Just because something happens a million times in a row is no reason to conclude that it will happen again. Of course the sun will rise tomorrow but that’s really only a guess. I believe that Voltaire had this very argument with the man who owned the bakery on the corner and it wasn’t resolved until the baker hit Voltaire with a baguette.
I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I have no conclusion at all. Perhaps I could start another letter to you that doesn’t even mention all this.
How do I know that you’re even still alive? Then all the time I’ve spent on this letter has just been a complete waste of time and I guess that now I’ve finally come to the conclusion that there is really no point anymore in my writing.
