I am indebted to
Jerome Downes
who inspired this conversation.
If you speak English but not Spanish and your host speaks Spanish but
not English and you don't have an
interpreter,
there's not much you can talk about.
On the other hand, if you do have an
interpreter,
there's really a lot you can talk about - almost anything
in fact. But even if you do have an
interpreter,
the reality is conversations lose something in translation. Translating
nuances conveyed by
language
requires going way beyond just matching a word in one
language
exactly with the corresponding word in another
language.
There's the entire set of "between the lines" implications
of
language
which travel more with the culture they originate in than
with the
dictionary
used to translate them.
How are they translated? How do you translate the "between
the lines" implications of a
language
so the experience it communicates travels through the
translated
language
and is gotten the same way as it was originally spoken? Is this class
of communication even possible? Is the best you can hope
for, to hear a close approximation of ie to hear a
good enough for
jazz
"in the ballpark" version of the communicated experience, similar to
but not an exact recreation of what was originally spoken? If it's only
similar to an experience, then it's not an exact
recreation of the experience. But if it's not an exact recreation of
the experience, then it's not communication.
Dinner With Intention
My daughter
and I are invited to dinner in Madrid, Spain. We sit down with our host
at a neatly laid table. I feel immediately at home, offering a nice
bottle of
Napa Valleywine
to propose a toast. The three of us have the following language skills
between us: our host speaks only Spanish,
my daughter
speaks Spanish and English, I speak only English. And the very first
question our host asks me in Spanish (which
my daughter
translates) is "What are
Conversations For
Transformation?
What is
transformation?".
My brief moment of surprise ends when I realize
my daughter
has told our host about me before I arrived. Very quickly I settle into
the challenge of speaking the intentionality and the inspiration behind
Conversations For
Transformation.
It's the challenge given by me not speaking Spanish communicating with
a woman not speaking English. There's not one moment of doubt this
conversation will actually go ahead. I'm not looking for a way out
because of the
language barrier.
I'm just wondering if it will
work.
I trust
my daughter's
skill translating between English and Spanish. I'm just wondering if
the nuances of
Conversations For
Transformation
will remain intact through the translation. I'm wondering if our host
will get
transformation
through the translation. In the normal course of events,
transformation
is communicated through
language.
Most experiences I have of this
working
is when everyone in the conversation speaks the same language. What
will happen this time, I wonder, given neither of us speak the same
language?
The first thing I realize is if this is going to
work,
I have to keep it simple. This is secondarily with deference to
my daughter's
translating skills which I can support by not having her run for a
dictionary
with every phrase and sentence I utter. It's primarily because I'm
present to communicating
transformation
as the shortest distance between two points ie as
the shortest distance
between two people.
It's
face to face,
person to person, and it's immediate. I vow to myself to
maintain eye contact, and to not wax lyrical.
My first offering is
"Transformation
is no more blaming.".
Now, whether or not that's true (and it may be) isn't the
point really. The point is there's a shift for people when
they stop blaming Life, circumstances, and other people for the quality
of their lives, which comes with
transformation,
and I'm interested if my opening bid, if you will, will strike a
chord because if it does, then I know how to proceed.
My daughter
translates, and our host and she engage in conversation. I wait
patiently, wondering if she'll get it. Suddenly our host breaks away
from conversing in Spanish with
my daughter.
Her eyes lock on mine, and she continues speaking in Spanish but now
she's speaking to me directly. She gets it!
My daughter
translates and she gets it, and she's not speaking to me through the
translation anymore. Now she's speaking to me directly.
My next bid (now I'm leading with
aces
- I quickly realize there's no sense holding back) is this: "Until you
complete what happened in the past, it runs you and will repeat itself
over and over and over again until you complete it.". Slightly more
time is required this time for the translation. And again, our host
looks at
my daughter
for the gist of the translation, and once she gets it, she looks
directly at me again, and this time something visible has opened up for
her.
The lines on her forehead have melted, like they've been air
brushed out. She has a look of excitement on her face, like a
child who is shown something fascinating for the first time. She is, by
the way (I get it from her animation during the
translation), totally clear about being run by what
happened in the past until she completes it. This, however, may be the
first time she's had a conversation about it - so clearly, so directly,
so explicitly. And certainly, this is the first time she's had a
conversation about it from English to Spanish and back again.
The conversation goes on this way for another hour or so over a hearty
dinner of stew with sips of maestro Nils Venge's
Cabernet
Sauvignon.
My concerns are gone. This can be done, given the
willingness of an
interpreter
who's also grounded in the distinctions of
transformation
(my daughter
is a
graduate).
There's one more point I'd like to be made known, and it's this: "When
the past is complete, it no longer contaminates the
future, which opens up the future for a life of creating new
possibilities rather than always being trapped in reacting to the
past.". As soon as I say it and
my daughter,
without missing a beat, launches into the translation, I'm concerned
a)
this concept is too heady without
sufficient background, and
b)
the word "contaminates" may not go well in
translation.
I wait as they exchange, and then as she's always done when she's
gotten a piece of
transformation,
our host breaks off from
my daughter
and continues to speak but now directly at me. And I'm clear: she gets
exactly to which I refer.
It's awesome. It really is. I realize I've seen it before - many times
in fact. I've seen it watching Werner deliver
his work
to groups of hundreds of people at once who don't speak
English. I've seen it watching
my friend Jerome
deliver
Werner's work
in Tokyo Japan
to groups of hundreds of people at once who only speak
Japanese
(Jerome
spoke English through an
interpreter).
So I know it works. But I wasn't the one delivering it. This time I am.
But not in Japanese. In Spanish. And Spanish ears hear it. It gets to
each person through Spanish ears. Just as it gets to each person
through Japanese ears. Just as it gets to each person through English
ears. It occurs to me
transformation,
while communicated by language, isn't dependent on
a language. The fact that
transformation
is universal for all human beings defying the so-called
language barrier
sends thrills up and down my spine, and
moves me deeply.
As I rinse down the now empty sink, I overhear
my daughter,
unprompted, saying he's a
friend
of mine who inspires me to write
Conversations For
Transformation
(I know enough Spanish to understand that much).