language
"Once you can express yourself, you can tell the world what you want from it. All the changes in the world, for good or evil, were first brought about by words." –Jackie O.
The more powerful communication technologies become, the more people will fight wars over words instead of territory. Language, when wielded at scale, is among man's most powerful weapons.
That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.
-The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
To share parts of ourselves as a way of undoing aloneness, as a method of connection, as a form of putting words to something someone else might not yet have the words for, feels like shining a flashlight on something that would otherwise stay hidden, or as Ocean Vuong said, building fire escapes for each other.
a beautiful passage from sublime’s innaugural zine on why language matters, in the context of building a different web.