Responsibility

Nearly titled this, ‘Pretentiousness’, as the thought provides both an impetus and an important exemplification apropos this post.

I liked poetry as a child, I wasn’t obsessed with it, but something about the form and the words stoked the creative fire within. An unruly teenager, having an immigrant background yet a mercurial mind (and little self-control) meant my mother had a hard time keeping me in check during high school. Then, at the precipice of high school education, a subject drew my attention for possibly the first time: literature. Here I could show off my lexical talents – and be praised for it! But of course, wrong motivations meant many essays were lacking in integrity and more about being highfalutin and satisfying my ego than about creating a work of art – one had yet to grasp even a capable sculptor takes years to chisel a masterpiece.

And so, balking at the monumental task of integrating the vast vocabulary available at my fingertips (and being mostly irrelevant to the undergraduate degree I had undertaken), I chose to forget about this particular talent and instead spent my time pursuing other ‘hobbies’.

For at the crux of it lay a simple issue: if one uses elaborate language, or a convoluted description, and the people you are speaking to – be it your friend, your colleagues; even your employees – do not understand you, who is at fault? Are you pretentious for using a complicated word when a simple one would suffice? How about when the unconventional word feels like ‘it fits’ better? Or when you are speaking to a crowd of similar aptitude and expects, if not demands, it of you (as an indication of merit)?

Do you understand? Every sentence the author constructs, resonates precisely differently for every individual reader, and even to himself at different times! O let it not be said to speak from one’s heart is a simple task!

“Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, won’t he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.”

– 1 Corinthians 8:9-13