Today I want to talk about the meaning of words, how we define them and how they, almost as revenge, define us.
Danas želim da govorim o značenju reči, kako ih definišemo i kako one, skoro kao iz osvete, definišu nas.
The English language is a magnificent sponge. I love the English language. I'm glad that I speak it. But for all that, it has a lot of holes. In Greek, there's a word, "lachesism" which is the hunger for disaster. You know, when you see a thunderstorm on the horizon and you just find yourself rooting for the storm. In Mandarin, they have a word "yù yī" -- I'm not pronouncing that correctly -- which means the longing to feel intensely again the way you did when you were a kid. In Polish, they have a word "jouska" which is the kind of hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head. And finally, in German, of course in German, they have a word called "zielschmerz" which is the dread of getting what you want.
Engleski jezik je veličanstven sunđer. Volim engleski jezik, drago mi je što ga govorim. Ali uz sve to, ima mnogo praznina. U grčkom postoji reč "lachesism" što znači žudnja za katastrofom. Znate, kad vidite munju na horizontu i prosto se zateknete kako navijate za munju. U mandarinskom imaju reč "yù yī" - ne izgovaram je tačno - a to označava žudnju da naš život ima intenzitet koji je imao kad smo bili dete. U poljskom imaju reč "jouska" a to je neki vid hipotetičkog razgovora koji kompulsivno ponavljate u glavi. I, naposletku, u nemačkom, naravno u nemačkom, imaju reč koja se naziva "zielschmerz" a to je strah od dobijanja onoga što želite.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Finally fulfilling a lifelong dream. I'm German myself, so I know exactly what that feels like.
Konačnog ispunjenja celoživotnog sna. Ja sam Nemac, pa tačno znam kakav je to osećaj.
Now, I'm not sure if I would use any of these words as I go about my day, but I'm really glad they exist. But the only reason they exist is because I made them up.
Sad, nisam siguran da bih koristio bilo koju od ovih reči u svojoj svakodnevici, ali mi je zaista drago što postoje. Ali jedini razlog zašto postoje je zato što sam ih ja izmislio.
I am the author of "The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows," which I've been writing for the last seven years. And the whole mission of the project is to find holes in the language of emotion and try to fill them so that we have a way of talking about all those human peccadilloes and quirks of the human condition that we all feel but may not think to talk about because we don't have the words to do it.
Ja sam autor "Rečnika nejasnih tuga", koga sam pisao poslednjih sedam godina. A čitava misija projekta je da se pronađu praznine u jeziku za osećanja i da ih pokušam popuniti kako bismo mogli da razgovaramo o svim tim ljudskim sitnim gresima i kapricima ljudskog stanja koje svi mi osećamo, ali možda ne pomišljamo da govorimo o njima jer nemamo reči za njih.
And about halfway through this project, I defined "sonder," the idea that we all think of ourselves as the main character and everyone else is just extras. But in reality, we're all the main character, and you yourself are an extra in someone else's story. And so as soon as I published that, I got a lot of response from people saying, "Thank you for giving voice to something I had felt all my life but there was no word for that." So it made them feel less alone. That's the power of words, to make us feel less alone.
I otprilike na polovini ovog projekta sam definisao "sonder", zamisao da svi sebe smatramo glavnim likom, a da su svi ostali samo statisti. Međutim, u stvarnosti, svi smo glavni likovi, a vi sami ste statista u nečijoj priči. Te, čim sam to objavio, dobio sam mnogo poruka od ljudi govorili su: "Hvala što si dao glas nečemu što sam osećao čitav život, ali nije postojala reč za to." Stoga su se osećali manje usamljeno. To je snaga reči, da se zbog njih osećamo manje usamljeno.
And it was not long after that that I started to notice sonder being used earnestly in conversations online, and not long after I actually noticed it, I caught it next to me in an actual conversation in person. There is no stranger feeling than making up a word and then seeing it take on a mind of its own. I don't have a word for that yet, but I will.
A nedugo potom sam počeo da primećujem da se sonder ozbiljno koristi u razgovorima na internetu, a nedugo nakon što sam to zapravo primetio, lično sam je čuo u stvarnom razgovoru koji se vodio pored mene. Nema čudnijeg osećaja od toga kad izmislite reč i onda vidite kako se osamostaljuje. Još uvek nemam reč za to, ali imaću.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I'm working on it.
Radim na tome.
I started to think about what makes words real, because a lot of people ask me, the most common thing I got from people is, "Well, are these words made up? I don't really understand." And I didn't really know what to tell them because once sonder started to take off, who am I to say what words are real and what aren't. And so I sort of felt like Steve Jobs, who described his epiphany as when he realized that most of us, as we go through the day, we just try to avoid bouncing against the walls too much and just sort of get on with things. But once you realize that people -- that this world was built by people no smarter than you, then you can reach out and touch those walls and even put your hand through them and realize that you have the power to change it.
Počeo sam da razmišljam o tome šta čini reči stvarnim jer me mnogi ljudi pitaju, najčešće pitanje koje mi postavljaju je: "Pa, da li su ove reči izmišljene? Ne razumem baš najbolje." I ja zaista ne znam šta da im kažem jer čim je sonder prhvaćena, ko sam ja da tvrdim koje reči su stvarne, a koje nisu. Pa sam se osećao nekako kao Stiv Džobs, koji je opisao svoje otkrovenje kada je shvatio da većina nas, dok se svakodnevno krećemo, prosto pokušavamo da izbegnemo prečesto udaranje u zidove i prosto težimo da idemo dalje. Ali čim shvatite da ljudi - da su ovaj svet sagradili ljudi koji nisu pametniji od vas, onda možete da posegnete i dodirnete te zidove, čak i da provučete ruku kroz njih i da shvatite da imate moć da ih promenite.
And when people ask me, "Are these words real?" I had a variety of answers that I tried out. Some of them made sense. Some of them didn't. But one of them I tried out was, "Well, a word is real if you want it to be real." The way that this path is real because people wanted it to be there.
Kad me ljudi pitaju: "Jesu li te reči stvarne?" Imam niz odgovora koje sam iskušao. Neki imaju smisla. Neki nemaju. Ali jedan od njih je glasio: "Pa, reč je stvarna, ako želite da bude stvarna." Razlog zašto je ova staza stvarna je jer su ljudi želeli da bude tu.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
It happens on college campuses all the time. It's called a "desire path."
To se stalno dešava na kampusima fakulteta. Naziva se "stazom žudnje".
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
But then I decided, what people are really asking when they're asking if a word is real, they're really asking, "Well, how many brains will this give me access to?" Because I think that's a lot of how we look at language. A word is essentially a key that gets us into certain people's heads. And if it gets us into one brain, it's not really worth it, not really worth knowing. Two brains, eh, it depends on who it is. A million brains, OK, now we're talking. And so a real word is one that gets you access to as many brains as you can. That's what makes it worth knowing.
Ali onda sam shvatio da ljudi zaista pitaju, kad pitaju da li je reč stvarna, zaista pitaju: "Pa, kolikom broju mozgova ću imati pristup ovom rečju?" Zato što smatram da tako uglavnom gledamo na jezik. Reč je u suštini ključ koji nas vodi u glave određenih ljudi. A ako nas vodi u jedan mozak, zaista nije vredna truda, nije vredna da je znate. Dva mozga, eh, zavisi čiji su. Milion mozgova, u redu, sad se razumemo. Dakle, stvarna reč je ona koja vam daje pristup što većem broju mozgova. To je ono što je čini vrednom znanja.
Incidentally, the realest word of all by this measure is this.
Slučajno, najstvarnija reč od svih prema ovom merenju je ova.
[O.K.]
[O.K.]
That's it. The realest word we have. That is the closest thing we have to a master key. That's the most commonly understood word in the world, no matter where you are. The problem with that is, no one seems to know what those two letters stand for.
To je to. Najstvarnija reč koju imamo. To je najbliže što imamo univerzalnom ključu. To je najrazumljivija reč na svetu, bez obzira na to gde bili. Problem s tim je što izgleda da niko ne zna šta ta slova predstavljaju.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Which is kind of weird, right? I mean, it could be a misspelling of "all correct," I guess, or "old kinderhook." No one really seems to know, but the fact that it doesn't matter says something about how we add meaning to words. The meaning is not in the words themselves. We're the ones that pour ourselves into it.
Što je nekako čudno, zar ne? Mislim, mogla bi da bude greška kod pisanja "all correct", valjda, ili "old kinderhook." Čini se da niko zaista ne zna, ali činjenica da nije važno govori nešto o tome kako rečima dajemo smisao. Značenje nije u samim rečima. Mi smo ti koji se pretačemo u njih.
And I think, when we're all searching for meaning in our lives, and searching for the meaning of life, I think words have something to do with that. And I think if you're looking for the meaning of something, the dictionary is a decent place to start. It brings a sense of order to a very chaotic universe. Our view of things is so limited that we have to come up with patterns and shorthands and try to figure out a way to interpret it and be able to get on with our day. We need words to contain us, to define ourselves.
I mislim kada svi mi tragamo za smislom u našim životima i kad tragamo za smislom života, mislim da reči imaju neke veze s tim. I mislim da ako tragate za smislom nečega, rečnik je pristojno mesto za početak. Donosi utisak reda u veoma neurednom univerzumu. Naše viđenje stvari je toliko ograničeno da moramo da izmislimo obrasce i prečice i da pokušamo da pronađemo način da to protumačimo i budemo u stanju da nastavimo dan. Potrebne su nam reči da nas sadrže, da nas definišu.
I think a lot of us feel boxed in by how we use these words. We forget that words are made up. It's not just my words. All words are made up, but not all of them mean something. We're all just sort of trapped in our own lexicons that don't necessarily correlate with people who aren't already like us, and so I think I feel us drifting apart a little more every year, the more seriously we take words.
Mislim da se mnogi od nas osećaju stešnjeno zbog toga kako koristimo reči. Zaboravljamo da su reči izmišljene. Ne samo moje reči, sve reči su izmišljene, ali sve one ne znače nešto. Svi smo mi na neki način zarobljeni u našim ličnim leksikonima koji se nužno ne poklapaju sa ljudima koji već nisu kao mi i zato imam utisak da se udaljavamo svake godine sve više, što ozbiljnije shvatamo reči.
Because remember, words are not real. They don't have meaning. We do.
Jer, setite se, reči nisu stvarne. Nemaju značenje. Mi imamo.
And I'd like to leave you with a reading from one of my favorite philosophers, Bill Watterson, who created "Calvin and Hobbes." He said, "Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it is still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble."
I želeo bih da završim čitanjem jednog od mojih omiljenih filozofa, Bila Votersona, koji je stvorio "Kalvina i Hobsa." Rekao je: "Stvoriti život koji odražava vaše vrednosti i prija vašoj duši je nesvakidašnji uspeh. Pronaći smisao sopstvenog života nije lako, ali je i dalje dozvoljeno i mislim da ćete zbog truda biti srećniji."
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)