All goldfish have eyes (except those that don’t) and, all people are people and, all men are people and all women too. We live in a very peopled place. People use words to become people. Prose, in particular presents purpose to people.

Presently we number about eight billion souls and each one uses words. They all use the big ones like good and bad and understand them on their own terms. There are over 8 billion types of good and bad in the world. All words in the English alphabet are derived from 26 symbols we call letters. All letters are good (except the type that contain bad news but these are no longer sent because we have email and WhatsApp and Facebook and LinkedIn and Snapchat and and and).

Truth is a popular word. All people believe they know what it is. Some truths are also contained in words. Words like good, bad, true, false, honour, virtue … they are all words. But, truth is just a word too. And words, contain the ideas we give to them, agree upon. There are over 8 billion versions of all of these in about 6500 languages which each contain variations of symbols. Some truths, the important ones, like love, are felt and difficult to translate into words. That is why we love stories and art. That is why writers still write. They write to translate the felt experience of life into words. Words are an unreliable medium because we all feel them differently. We have all had different experiences and how we feel is the translator of the words forming inside each of us. We speak our way into the world.

When people (of the all variety) say “all” I am immediately sceptical. Can you see why? Apart from all people being people, there are few times that we can use the word “all” with any certainty. We want the whole world aligned to our use of words. We call something good or true or bad or wrong and expect over 8 billion minds to geneflect at the altar of our perspective.

So how do we even begin to talk?

We talk too much, too quickly with too great a sense of authority, too much conviction that we are right.

When I hear the world “all” I recoil. I see your mouth move and shift air that has been pressurised by your vocal chords and choreographed into sounds by your tongue. I think:

wouldn’t it be nice if we used words with some concern for how they are heard. If we could use them to navigate through hostility to find love. Wouldn’t it be nice if we were kinder. But, you said all like your experience of the world is the template for all people. That’s unkind.

That’s all.