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Hey you.
First off: There are three new calligraphy nib holders in the shop. (The Hancock fountain pen sold already.) There’s new photos for three of the folded note cards (the cards aren’t new, I just like the new photos, they’re pretty)… and seven – SEVEN, seriously – new, framed original paintings in the shop. This is in addition to the other pens, prints, and jewelry already there.
I really am trying to keep things up to date on the website to make things easy to find. (Just don’t… don’t ask me for an ETA on the Portfolio pages. I have no idea. Or the CV. I know it has the London shows, but beyond that, I’m not sure how many years out of date it is. At least three. It’s so very out of date. No, I’m not linking, you’re gonna have to DIG to find that shame.)
And off we go.
Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas.
I am going to, after opening this letter with Latin, state what is probably very obvious: I am a Nerd. The vast majority of my books are reference, non-fiction, or textbooks – and mostly ones I’ve read. If I know anything about a subject, I’m happy to talk with you about it, and if I don’t know anything about it, but you do, I hope you feel like talking about it because we’re about to. I have never been cool. EVER. I took Latin in high school, including competing in the Latin Olympics (y’all, I nearly lettered in Latin in ONE semester) and I was the only passing student for most of the semester I was in Technical Theatre. I have distinct memories of being even less cool in junior high and elementary school. I am still that Nerd, underneath everything else.
So when we – we, being the community choir and I – got Requiem for the Living for this season, and I saw that it was almost entirely in Latin, I was tickled to bits. (Everyone else, less tickled about the Latin. I am used to it, it’s a Nerd Thing.) Most of the Latin I already knew – it’s the same or very similar to most of the Latin used in the Catholic Masses I used to sing with another choir… as a teenager. (Again, Nerd, I know.) They were roughly enough the same, except for the second movement, where the composer had scrapped the usual stuff and opened with new Latin I didn’t know: “Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas.” (I never said I was good at Latin.) It translates: ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’ (Again, never said I was good.) The music is aggressive, angry, and despairing, pleading, hopeless, and then, furious.
This didn’t quite jive with the translation given in the book. I get curious. I google. End up down the Biblical Hebrew to Ancient Latin translation rabbit hole. (Again.) I spent the rest of the week contemplating vanity, art, death, and the self. It… was a week, but I digress.
Did you know that the Latin translation of the Bible is a very heated debate? Yeah, it has been for ages, but not if the words are accurate so much as if they used the right Latin word for the Hebrew word, because guess what, not all languages have one for one translations. Not even close. Hebrew has a staggering number of specific words to describe love, right, but also quite a range for quite a few other more subtle experiences. So, at the time, vanitas was accurate – in the 1200’s, it meant emptiness, futility, pointless; temporary, essentially. The Old English vanity was for things that were empty, futile, worthless. The intent behind that passage when they translated it was to convey the feeling of grief and angst that comes when you realize that life is futile, temporary – vapor or mist on the morning wind. Followed by dona eis requiem – grant them eternal rest – vanitas vantatum, omnia vanitas is spot on for the moment when despair meets rage: everything is empty, everything is pointless, everything is temporary, everything is worthless, what gave your life meaning is gone – everything is vanity. It was not to shame, but validate.
Now? Vanity – something of no value – is used to describe when someone is self-focused. Yeah. Sit with that for a second.
Our gaze inward has no value.
Our knowing of ourselves is worthless, as is the time we spend trying to understand the ephemeral nature of our existence and the fruits of that search. No, what we are told has value is the experience others have of us – the ways they can benefit from, take from, copy, mutate, profit from, copy, seed, feed, scrape, plagiarize, and claim it as their own. They don’t even notice who they take from.
Keep that meaning shift in mind the next time someone tells you when what you are focused on, that what you want, need, love, do, think about is vain. Keep in mind that knowing ourselves is the point of each heartbeat, of creativity, of opening our eyes in the morning. Keep this in mind the next time you spend time on something: if all is vanity, if all is temporary, if all is worthless, then you decide what is worthy of your time, worthy of your appreciation, celebration, energy, attention, and nerding out on.
You were never meant to be an empty shell for others to shout into and listen to their own voice echo – you are not a Little Mermaid.
Let no one tell you that what you love is vanity.
A.Markov
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This was originally sent as a newsletter for Of Pens & Paintbrushes. If you’d like to get this directly in your inbox, you can sign up here, at the Newsletter sign up page.