One of my favorite German words is entsorgen. It means to dispose. The origin and the current meaning of the English word dispose are mostly identical: to move something somewhere.
The literal translation of entsorgen is to free from sorrow, which is also its original meaning. The word disappeared from the vocabulary until it was rediscovered in the late 1970s, seemingly as a useful euphemism in bureaucratic language. Modern-day Germans free themselves from sorrow when they dispose of trash, especially the toxic kind.
Isn’t that poetic?
A still from the movie 1984 (© Amazon MGM Studios)
Language shapes the way we think. A popular example for this effect is Newspeak from George Orwell’s classic novel 1984. This fictional language is precisely designed to manipulate how the population of an authoritarian state thinks.
Instead of bad, in Newspeak you would say ungood. Critical thoughts cannot be expressed clearly and become less thinkable. Other statements can be true and false at the same time to further delude the speaker’s thoughts. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
Real-world authoritarians understand that as well. They despise the fake news. They provide the public with alternative facts. They erase minorities or unpleasant historical facts from official records while proclaiming freedom of speech.
A few days ago I was talking to a friend. I was angry with the world, ranting about things. Later, while thinking about our conversation, I told myself: you complain too much. Actually, since my native language is German, the sentence was du beschwerst dich zu viel.
The expression sich beschweren means to to complain in English. But it literally translates to to put weight onto oneself. That is also its original meaning — almost the opposite of what it means today. I had never realized that before. Something in my brain made a clicking sound.
Heavy armour protects. And makes it harder to move. (Image taken from the Met Museum public archive)
I think it’s healthy to vent from time to time. Constantly complaining, however, without actually changing things, can lead to a cynical attitude, often with a bad effect on mental health. Psychologists commonly describe cynicism as a defence mechanism. A cynical person would say things like: No matter what, this will never work.
By preparing yourself for the worst, you deprive yourself of hope. Why try if you are already convinced you’ll fail? Metaphorically speaking, if you are cynical, you build up armour. It protects you. But it isolates you. It makes it difficult to move. It is a lot of weight to put on yourself.
Since language affects our thoughts, maybe the words we use about ourselves are worth looking at more closely. In my case, stumbling upon the literal meaning of a certain word made me think of an allegory:
I don’t want to carry mental weight that I can avoid. I want to practice unloading it. Maybe doing this regularly makes me stronger — like a weightlifter exercising their muscles. My goal is to avoid getting stuck and move more freely, so I can change things.
Entsorgen, in a way — by its original meaning.