Since early childhood, we begin hearing and learning phrases. Some of them accompany us all our lives.
Of course, not all of them are memorable. Many phrases will fall on deaf ears, depending on who says them to us or depending on our capacity or willingness to comprehend those phrases. Or depending on what we felt when we actually heard them. Was the phrase a positive or a negative moment? Was it said in good or bad faith? Most importantly, did the phrase ring true?
As we begin to grow up, we interact with other children and other youngsters or get tutored or instructed by adults. We also have to contend with the danger of the omnipresent influence of television, radio, smart phones, and social media. Hopefully, we might develop the habit of reading books, magazines, and newspapers. In all of those spaces, we begin to learn new phrases.
We tend to treasure some phrases, because they represent important moments in our lives.
Phrases that made us laugh, phrases that rang true from the moment we heard them. A truth that might help us move forwards in our lives, phrases that can open doors, phrases that help us define ourselves, or phrases that help us to extricate ourselves from trouble.
We embrace those phrases, make them ours, live by them. Some become phrases that we might pass on to our children, to our students…or to our readers. Phrases that we might want them to remember. Or to be remembered by them.
Some say that, if we are lucky and—hopefully—worthy of some attention, people might still remember us after we leave this world. We might be remembered by a couple of anecdotes, or a few oft-repeated phrases. Just a few bits of the myriad of things that we did in the long and winding road we call life.
If that is the case, it might serve us well to be aware of what we say, of what we repeat as our mantras. In a way, we are planting seeds for posterity, since a modest modicum of immortality is earned by what we do and say in life. With the doing being, clearly, more Important.
Of course, it is necessary to be coherent or consistent between what we say and what we do. Because, as the saying goes: “From saying to doing there is a long way.”
A couple of weeks ago, as we memorialized Juan Pablo Gutiérrez, an artist and community leader, some of us were asked to say a few words about him and his work.
A couple of people referred to a phrase that Juan Pablo always repeated, his mantra: “Our dead are not for sale!” Saying it, he referenced his work in the Day of the Dead Procession, which he helped organize for about 40 years. He used that phrase when he constantly rejected the money offered by advertisers of nicotine or alcohol, those who are always intent on hijacking a popular public space, which the Day of the Dead Procession has become, in order to sell their unhealthy products. Juan Pablo always had the same answer: “Our dead are not for sale!”
Doctor and Activist Concha Saucedo, mythical co-founder of Instituto Familiar de La Raza, was also there. She is the embodiment—some say originator—of another iconic phrase: “La cultura cura.” Culture Heals. This particular phrase has been almost universally adopted by our community. It is used by educators, healers, artistic creators and activists. The phrase now belongs to all of us.
Those phrases came from individuals who were active participants in the public realm. Most likely, in the course of their careers, they had a moment of inspired recognition, an epiphany, when they said that phrase out loud, it felt right and others who heard it responded positively.
At times, phrases like those move from the personal to the public realm. Then, they might be adopted by a community at large, by a particular country. Even the whole world might adopt it!
Here, I am thinking about a chant that, I believe, originated in the large marches in defense of the government of Salvador Allende, in Chile, when he briefly governed, between 1970 and 1973, the year when he was overthrown by a military coup. The phrase is: “The people, united, will never be defeated!”
That street chant became a song, created by the Chilean composer Sergio Ortega and the musical group “Quilapayún.” Composed and recorded in June 1970, “The people united will never be defeated” is one of the most internationally renowned songs of the New Chilean Song movement.
That chant, today, is said and sung all over the world, in many languages. When the song was written, the composer, in a meeting with other friends, evoked that phrase which came from the chants that came from the streets. If we listen to the song, it clearly lends itself to the rhythm of a march. People stepping forward chanting it in unison.
I was there at the time. For me, personally, it has been a wonderful revelation of the power of an inspirational phrase, something that came to life destined to be shared with others.
We treasure phrases, large and small, all our lives. Basic truths that, although we think they only live within the walls of our homes, eventually reveal themselves as universal truths, shared in all cultures.
Can you think of any? I am certain that you can!