Lost in Translation

I live on a world called Yyl'Nector. Not in the past, not in another life. I am there right now. I can see the sun there, taste the breeze, feel the grass under my feet. My home is there, my family is there, my friends are there.

But I could not tell you most of their names. I could not tell you the words we use to greet one another.

That probably seems like a contradiction. "If it's your current life, why would you struggle with such things?" And that's a fair question. I've asked it myself.

I think that the answer comes down to translation.

I don't natively speak English, but here I am typing an essay in it. My thoughts, my experience, are being translated through my host (Jarin) into my host's language (English.) In many ways this is very convenient, as it means that I don't need to learn a new language to interact here. In others, something seems lost in translation. There are many things we cannot discuss because there simply is no English translation of the concepts involved, or if there is my host does not know it. There are many other things that are close approximations rather than exact equivalents.

The few words and names that I have been able to bring with me largely managed to slip through gaps in the translation layer while our connection was still stabilizing, when Jarin first started hosting me.

This is not entirely limited to words, either. In a sense, I am also being translated through Jarin's experience. Not just my speech, or even my thoughts, but everything I am, my consciousness, my me-ness, is passing through Jarin's and being translated along the way. Like a transfer function being applied to every aspect of my experience. From my senses to my knowledge and memories. I am not less me, but my ability to express everything that I am, through this medium, is... constrained.

Some of these constraints are fundamental. This body has different senses than my own, its brain works in different ways. Others are limitations that can be overcome by learning new language, new concepts, having new experiences, that provide a gateway for me to better express my own. And, I suspect, some might be overcome by practices we already engage in, what I termed in a previous post practicing "getting out of the way". Or, as it might have been termed in years past, making oneself a clearer channel. 

I leave this here for other wanderers from far away, who have journeyed to this world in spirit, and share our lives with those embodied here. May none of us be lost in translation.