Part One: The Cliffside
I was working on my geometry homework when I had a thought:
Why does 2 + 2 = 4?
For a slight moment, I was stumped. But my ego snapped me out of it.
You’re smarter than that, Zion,” it said. “Everyone knows 2 + 2 = 4!
But that was not the question. The question was, “Why does 2 + 2 = 4?” Hmm… I began to ponder it again when my inner “know-it-all” stopped me again,
Okay, okay, okay, since you’re naive enough to entertain this notion, I will entertain you with an answer. Ahem… ‘Two items added to two other items makes four items altogether.’ There!—a perfect answer.
I accepted that answer for a while. I mean, why was I trying to overcomplicate something so basic? It’s just two things added to two other things to make four things. But the more I thought about it the more it bothered me. It’s the “why”. Why do we accept 2 + 2 to equal 4? Can it not equal 6 or 1? Can it not equal something crazy like… marshmallows? I don’t know!?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, you are going way too deep there, Zion.” Said my inner common sense (not the rapper). “In this world, there are accepted truths. You mustn’t test them; you must accept them. Because to test what has been set in stone for generations is to stand dangerously on a cliffside where you could fall into a paradox of chaos! Don’t do it Zion; don’t stray from what you know is right—what you know to be true. Two was, is, and always will be two; and added to two others it will always become four. Accept it!
But why?” I asked, or rather pleaded. “What are these accepted truths you’re talking about? Why has this been hidden from me?
I felt betrayed. All my life 2 has just been 2. The sky has just been the sky; the trees just the trees. But now one question—one simple question that I could not answer—caused me to question if anything that I knew was all it could be.
Calm down.” Said that inner voice. “You have fallen off the cliff into a paradox. But I am still your mind so you just dragged me along too. I am a little upset with you for not listening to me but if you do what I say from now on both of us can get out of this. Alright, let me see… First I will help you wrap your head around the concept of the same thing having many names. Then I will explain accepted truths to you. Finally, you should be able to give me a logical answer to your silly question, ‘Why 2 + 2 = 4?’ Okay? Sound good? Here we go.
Part Two: The Coffee Story
Imagine one evening, you go to an international-themed networking event where all you can use to converse is Google Translate. You make two new friends there and you all bond over a shared love for cappuccinos. You all take turns talking into your phones and sharing translated messages about this beverage. One friend translates from Spanish, the other from French, and you from English. At the end of the event, you all decide to meet for coffee the following morning.
At 8 a.m. the next morning, you hop in your car and head to the coffee shop to talk to your new friends about cappuccinos again, except this time over cappuccinos.
“Hello!” you say, greeting them in line.
“Hola!” replies one.
“Bonjour!” greets the other.
You all have no trouble understanding one another’s greetings. I mean, most people know “hello” in at least one other language. At the counter, the barista asks what she can get for you all, and you all answer simultaneously,
“Cappuccino!”
Suddenly you all stop and look at each other. For the first time in your friendship, you all spoke the same language. Wow! You had all felt just a slight bit distanced from one another because of the language barrier, but for that one second you all felt united by none other than the word,
“Cappuccino!” You all began chanting it, “CAP-PUC-CI-NO! CAP-PUC-CI-NO!”
Annoyed and a little frightened the barista asks you all to leave. Out in the parking lot, you and your friends talk over Google Translate again, but you will never forget that moment when you all spoke the same language at the same time.
Part Three: Obi-Wan Kenobi Coffee
If you are confused don’t worry it will all make sense soon.
Cappuccino is an Italian word. Its definition is:
espresso coffee topped with frothed hot milk or cream and often flavored with cinnamon
(“Cappuccino Definition & Meaning”)
According to merriam-webster.com, the word originated from the “Capuchin friars (…) founded in the 16th century”:
“The Capuchins were also renowned for their dress. They wear a simple brown robe that includes a long, pointed hood that hangs down the back. The Italian word for this distinctive hood, cappuccio, gave rise to the Italian name for the order. It also gave rise to the Italian word for a friar of the Capuchin order (…)
When the cappuccino drink was first introduced in Italy, it was named after the Capuchin friars because the color of the espresso mixed with frothed milk was similar to the color of the Capuchin robe. The name, whimsical in a world of utilitarian coffee-drink names, stuck; we borrowed it into English in the late 1800s.”
All to say, cappuccino is just a word based on the color of a robe. There is no reason why the drink could not be called the Kenobi or the Ewok.
However, other words such as “hello” are very different. It has one meaning: To greet; to welcome; to get one’s attention. Even animals say hello. All of us on this planet—whether we say it, think it, or non-cognitively do it—express the meaning of “hello” at some point in our lives. But we all express it differently.
Remember your friends? You all greeted one another in different languages, and although you didn’t fully understand their greeting words, you innately knew the meaning. However, with the cappuccinos you all used the same word. Suppose you did go to a coffee shop and order a Kenobi. Do you think the barista will innately know you mean cappuccino? Well, that would be cool but if she hadn’t read this article before work that day that answer is probably no.
Part Four: Lavender!
Is this starting to make sense to you, Zion?” asked my ego. “I’ve been trying to explain these things rather vaguely to you so that you can make the connections yourself and ultimately come to your own conclusions.
I remained quiet. I was trying to think but my mind wouldn’t shut up. It had taken me on a roller coaster of redundant nonsense just to bring me back to my original problem:
“Why?”
Why?” I said out loud. “Why can’t the barista innately know what I mean by cappuccino?
Well,” began my ego, “I suppose if you gave her some context as to what you meant she would know. But she could not know innately. I know innately what is joy, and what is sad. But what is coffee, I do not know.
Hmm… things were starting to click now. I was beginning to understand. True story: Once, my family had a dog. His name was Prince. Prince had a bed. His bed was lavender. When we wanted him to go there we would say, “Go to your bed” or just, “Bed”. He would go.
One day my mom said that she was tired of hearing, “Go to your bed” all the time. So we changed our command to the color of his bed and would say, “Go to your Lavender”. He would go.
A long time later I was curious if he would obey any word that we matched with our expression of our meaning for him to go to his bed. I started saying “Mayonnaise” when I wanted him to go to his bed—and well—he would go.
Part Five: Zion’s Conclusion… I guess
That story came to mind when I thought of Kenobi Coffee. I thought of the cliff that I had fallen from. Maybe it was for the better. It is refreshing to take a step away from the order that is ingrained into our minds to make us fear change. I’d rather think like a dog. We crazy humans can put whatever names we want on things but names will never change the meaning of things. Prince knew the meaning of bed, but he did not know the word. He did not ask why.
There are numerous advantages to human communication over animal communication. But we will never find those advantages if we can not appreciate the importance of language and its impact on how we express ourselves, build relationships, and relate to one another.
Within that appreciation, sometimes it is healthy to ask ‘why’, like I did. If you push past accepted truths to discover why they were accepted, you will find new ways to express meaningful things. Such as this article: a very abstract expression of language.
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