The Immortality of Our Words.

You can’t bring the dead back to life. That's the truth. The world is filled with busy
people and bustling streets. Although we don’t think much of strangers on the road,
they have all done something that has affected us in some way or another.
Alchemists believed there was a connection between everything from the atom to the
universe. They hypothesised ways to change elements into others, believing that
lead could be perfected to gold, that there was an elixir that could cure all diseases.
If this elixir really existed we would’ve known about it by now. Right? Although this
may seem like pseudoscience to us, what if I told you that they had the right ideas
but wrong execution? That conceptually we are able to change and manipulate the
world, not through the changing of one element into another but through the mixing
and melting of our words. Through the formation of sentences with a unique
alchemical touch, we are able to extend the stories and lives of those who were
before us, bringing them back to life from words to worlds.

“Mum! Where’s my-” I stopped in my tracks, though arguably mad that I couldn’t find
my missing sock, it appeared my hysterical calls never reached her ears. I peered
over her shoulder to see her completely concentrated on a pile of letters. As my
shadow casts over her she takes a quick glimpse at me, her eyes glimmered under
the light, with a somber smile. These were the letters she sent to my dad when they
lived on different continents. Attached was a small photograph of her younger more
lively self; though her smile hasn’t changed it was obvious that the life in her eyes
has. Perhaps it was the teenage ignorance in her that caused those eyes; the loss of
innocence that comes as a byproduct of maturing. The letters brought forgotten
memories back to life, reminding her of the past and how good life used to be.

I’ve come to realise that when we tend to disregard the mundane aspects of life, the
important details remain unnoticed. Although undoubtedly anguished that my sock
will never be found, it’s important to not let emotions drive my judgement. Instead I
should be grateful that my worries for the day were petty and miniscule. As we grow
older, our memories stray further from the events that actually took place. Without a
form of communication, how do we articulate our experiences? How do we even
know the impact of our actions? As we grow wiser and more knowledgeable, our
experiences begin to compile, folded nicely like documents in an office filer, stored
neatly for us to one day reminisce about. The memories we create are just as
important as our everyday actions. Like puzzle pieces, as we slowly find the missing
pieces we are able to fill the void, that is, our understanding of the world.

Stories allow us to bring words back into worlds. With the simple arrangement of
different words onto a piece of paper, the meaning of the entire piece of paper can
be changed almost instantaneously. It’s with our innate ability to understand and tell
stories that we are able to put meaning and emphasis onto different events of the
past. The importance of documenting history is to understand the world we live in, to
acknowledge and learn from our past, therefore allowing us to appreciate the way we
live today. Born too late to witness large turning points in history, we are able to
vicariously experience them through literature; bringing the past back to its future.
Anne Franks’ ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ has provided a small glimpse into the life of
Jewish girl living in Nazi-occupied Holland. Not only does her diary help others gain
a perspective of the mid 20th century, it also portrays her unexpected positive
mentality to life. “What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it from
happening again.” Her appreciation for everything in her life and her ability to find the
good in everything, despite her circumstances is inspirational. With her diary now
being renowned across continents, her way of living is brought back to life into our
world. Through the study and understanding of historical events, words can outlive
the times in which they were written, bringing its people back into this world.

What if we were the alchemists? To have the power to change the value of our
words through simply selectively picking each word, ordering them in a specific way
such that these words hold power over our thinking. For us to find solace and
understanding of how our world truly functions, we must bring forward concepts that
help guide us. Whether through philosophy, religion or even just ethics and morals,
there will forever be discussions in order to bring to light all perspectives. Morals and
ethics have always been a large part of who we are and how we behave, however it
still remains to be one of the hardest parts of the human consciousness to
understand. Interesting works of philosophy such as Neitzche’s ‘Human, all too
Human’ shed light on the vast spectrum that our ethics lie on and offer advice to
universal problems we face. The aphorism ‘The Hour Hand of Life’ delves deeper
into human relations, where Neitzhe’s philosophy of human endeavours challenges
how we perceive our everyday life. It explores the human ego and selfishness,
reminding us of the flaws of the human personality. He discusses how we are so
blinded by the way we want others to view us, that we overlook the small parts of our
lives. With less than 100 words, Neitzhe’s manipulation of words discusses the
plethora of human emotions, presenting human flaws and the philosophy behind our
hidden personas. Knowledge is priceless: we use our words to articulate and discuss
our never ending sea of ideas; we use different concepts to guide us in the way we
live, further extending the life of one’s thoughts, therefore extending the life of the
alchemist.

“Mum. MUM!” I pay little attention to my daughter’s calls for me. ‘It‘s probably over
something small like a missing sock’ I think to myself. My concentration lies within
photos on my phone of a happier, healthier self. As I reminisce of how good life used
to be in the early 2020s, waves of nostalgia came rushing through as I opened up
the files of memories that I had stored so neatly away.

The rumble of our words will be heard throughout future worlds. Though we may
seem disconnected from each other, we’re all connected through an elixir- our
words. The alchemist is able to manipulate their world into words, for others to revive
the words back into their own world. Although human alchemy has never succeeded
in bringing the dead back to life, their actions, thoughts and morals all live through
the craft of writing. We’ve never been able to perform magic and change lead into
gold, but our ability to continue the cycle of words and worlds is worth beyond gold,
it’s priceless.
My discursive piece titled ‘The Immortality of Our Words’ is heavily influenced by the
discussions brought to light in Geraldine Brooks ‘A Home in Fiction’. I chose to
explore the importance of changing worlds into words and how the cycle of our
words would forever continue. Similarly to Brooks, I discuss how the personalisation
of each piece of writing is dependent on the composer, allowing for different
perspectives to be depicted.

My piece has taken great inspiration from ‘A Home in Fiction’ where I incorporated
the different perspectives one could have when creating their own interpretation of
writing. The metaphor, ‘the mixing and melting of our words…’ alludes to alchemy
and the previous attempts of combining elements to create a new element, therefore
creating new meaning to our words. Similarly to Brooks’ extensive use of metaphors
to sustain one side of literature, the metaphor further builds on her ideas through
how we are able to manipulate language for it to portray our different ideas and
values.

Analogously to ‘A Home in Fiction’, I used a personal anecdote in a cyclical

structure. Brooks encapsulates the different discussions of connectivity; that
everything can be tied to another. I chose to begin with an anecdote of my
interactions with my mother as she looks back at her life through compiled letters. I
then ended my discursive with a flash forward anecdote that parallels the first. This
allowed me to further convey how we will always live through stories as well as that
we are all connected.

In summation, my discursive piece explored the different ways we are able to

continue having an impact on future generations. Throughout the process of this
discursive I came to understand the gravity of words in literature. It brought to light
the different perspectives of how we should perceive our life whilst emphasising the
importance of stories in order to learn and understand our world.