Anyway, I've been reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. It's an excellent book so far, and fits in well with my theme of question asking.
In the part I just read, the author is living in Rome, and realizes that even though she loves the city, it does not feel like home to her. She does not think she could spend the rest of her life there. One of her Roman friends says that's probably because her "word" does not match the city's "word."
He has this idea that the majority of people in any given place are thinking similar thoughts, which can be summed up in or categorized by one word. If your personal word matches the place's word, you belong in that place. If not, you don't.
According to him, Rome's word is SEX. (The author has decided to be celibate for a year, so that's that for her and Rome.) She thinks New York's word might be ACHIEVE and L.A.'s SUCCEED. (I am capitalizing these because that's how they are in the book, even though it looks funny and feels like shouting.)
It's interesting to think about the word for your place. I live in D.C. I think D.C.'s word could be STRIDE, which is how everyone walks around and is also a joke from a Dave Barry book. D.C's word could also be the similar STRIVE. Maybe POWER... but POWER does not seem quite right for D.C., despite the fact that it's the nation's capitol.
I grew up in a place whose word is STAGNANT, or, less negatively, QUIESCENT. (I used my thesaurus.) I lived in Chapel Hill, NC, for awhile. Chapel Hill was very different from where I grew up. Its word might be TRANSFORM. Charleston, WV is probably something like SURVIVE or ENDURE.
My own word is more difficult. It's not STRIVE, though. I like CREATE, but I don't think it's really my word. Maybe THINK or LISTEN.
I'm not sure.
The questions, obviously, are
what's your place's word? And what's yours?
8 comments:
This is a neat question. I have to think about it for a while.
As a dorky aside, I think that the reason she may be doing the all caps thing is that is a thing linguists do to indicate that they mean the underlying concept, rather than the word specifically, so cat and chat and gato are all
CAT.
oh. that makes sense.
Charlotte's word is SURVIVE. My word is RECOVER.
That is how I feel right now, though, and as I look at it, I think I might be lying.
I'm from ACHIEVE but now I live in...GROW? Maybe GROWTH or GROWING? This game is hard!
This was a really interesting question. I liked the game, it was both fun and hard.
I think that Austin's word is SWEAT. Partly because it is 1000 degrees here much of the time, but also because it is a place that wants you to prove yourself, but in a different way than, say New York or DC. In way that is about authenticity and politics as well as achievement.
I'm not sure what my word is, but I think maybe it is PROVE or PROOF. This is about being a scientist and also about how I feel like I need a lot of information to make decisions. Also about how I feel like I need to prove myself to others in various professional/personal ways.
Calgary's word is STAMPEDE, and not only because it is Stampede week. This town has so much money and so much poverty that the money stampedes over the not-monied.
I feel like my word right now is PERSERVERE, which I hate to admit was the first thing that popped into my head about myself. I live meagan's PROOF, though for me proof would be needing proof that there is somthing beyond where i am. Sheesh. isn't angst for November?
What is Stampede? Details, please.
Chicago's word is, uninterestingly enough, STAND. As in, stand strong against the wind. Stand on the El or the bus. Stand up for your opinion. Stand up for your neighbor.
My word is probably CHOOSE. Because I've done a poor job choosing in my life, and I have a hard time choosing well on major decisions.
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