Letters to Ukraine – 20

What words best describe us? It’s certainly tempting to define ourselves through a handful of common adjectives and nouns. We hope to be happy, successful, famous, popular; we want to have cars, money, security, fun. Some of our more worthy instincts tend to be captured by the abstract noun: dignity, friendship, justice, faith. Meanwhile, in day-to-day life and business, the verb dominates: from moment to moment, we usually think of ourselves as doing something. We eat, sit, work, sleep. How often have you described yourself to a boss or interviewer, to an adversary or prospective lover, in terms of strong nouns, colourful adjectives, stimulating verbs? Recently, though, I’ve begun to wonder about that quiet category of words: prepositions. With, at, on, for. So frequently ignored or taken for granted, we get the humble preposition wrong at our peril: for a problem to be before you, is hardly the same thing as it being beyond you. So, we may aspire to love someone; but how about being fully with them? We may yearn for world peace; but can we be at peace ourselves? When listening to ourselves concerning how we might best be in the world, the unassuming, often tiny, preposition has much to say.

© Mario Petrucci, 2012