Some differences are not designed to create difficulty. They exist to slow you down.

It took me a while to understand why the world contains so many places where translation is never quite complete. Why in Chinese “ten thousand” is not simply ten thousand but literally “ten times a thousand,” requiring the mind to pass through an extra step. Why certain languages force you to hesitate for a moment before you can proceed. That hesitation is not an error. It is an intentional delay.

When language cannot be converted instantly, you cannot simply slide past it, react automatically, or pretend you have already understood. You must decode. You must pause. You must acknowledge: at this moment, I stand outside of you.

And in that single beat of suspension, something real begins to happen.

Translation has never been about replacing A with B. It is about walking a small distance between two worlds. The effort required in that crossing is not about skill, efficiency, or arriving at the correct answer. It is about respect. It is about relationship. It is about civilization.

If everything could be converted seamlessly, human beings would not need one another. We would only need systems. But civilization does not exist to make things faster. It exists to make us willing to take one more step.

Those awkward places in language, the parts that do not align smoothly, the phrases that resist clean translation these are not obstacles. They are seams. And seams allow thought to enter. They allow misunderstanding to remain. They allow understanding to carry weight.

I have begun to treasure those “wait a second” moments. Not because I finally understand everything, but because I have realized that understanding was never meant to be light.

Civilization survives not because we speak the same language, but because we are willing to pause at the places where we do not.



—— XC Scribbles · 壹佰壹拾捌 CXVIII 🕳️卍