By the Light of the Moon
Vice is always in the active, virtue often in the passive.
~ Frances Willard, 1876
When creating on my computer, I keep the spell and grammar check engaged. Once my typing is completed, I give the computer time to participate. We have a great time together. I always consider my computer’s input and then, about 90 percent of the time, ignore its advice.
I appreciate the way it effortlessly finds and corrects misspelled words. Grammar, however, is a whole different subject. We have an ongoing disagreement about active and passive and my decision rules.
The computer highlights a portion of a sentence. Passive voice: Consider revising. I respond back with ignore. The computer gets bolder. Fragment, consider revising. My response? Ignore.
No matter how often I refuse to take my computer’s advice, it faithfully continues to fully participate.
Imagine if you tried to pull that off with a person. Let me rephrase that. Remember what happens in your friendships and significant relationships when you do that to them?
“Would you take a look at this and tell me if you see anything wrong with it?”
“Okay, let’s see.”
“This is wrong, and you could probably revise that to make it work better.”
Your response: “No.”
Five minutes later: “Would you take a look here and tell me what you think?”
“All this is fine; just this one area might need to be revised.”
Your answer: “No.”
I love the word no. I love that my computer has no problem being told no and stays strong and engaged even when I blatantly ignore its input. We meet up, have intense interactions, liberally use yes and no with each other, and we don’t waste any time harboring unexpressed resentments, secret revenge fantasies or guilt feelings because of asking for help one minute and rejecting it the next.
Of course, there are computer crashes that seem to come out of nowhere, which could be some deep-seated denial problem that is hardwired into every computer. Perhaps, like people who go postal, computers finally get mad as hell and just can’t take the abuse anymore.
My intent is not to make my computer, or every English teacher in the country, wrong. Instead, it is to introduce the right use of the passive voice. Writing passively allows me to share with you in a meandering, musing, walk in the park on a beautiful spring day so that perhaps you can feel into new ways of being before it is time to take action.
Quiet, receptive, non-resistant openness to and acceptance of new ideas and ways of looking at our lives can create subtle and meaningful shifts in the way that we approach our daily living.
Passive tense can sometimes be the pause between breaths. Passive opens the door to allow unconscious longings and secret desires to whisper their truths.
If active and action are the Sun, passive and still are the Moon. Intuitive wisdom is enhanced by moonlight.
Passive voice allows us to entertain thoughts that sometimes lie too deep for tears. Those mute sorrows, secret dreams and the places in us that the world we live in doesn’t comprehend or value…these are some of the outcomes that have a chance to visit when we are willing to quiet our minds and hearts enough to bathe in the passive light of the Moon.
Susan is a Laguna local and author of “Beyond Intellect: Journey into the Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind.” Connect with her at: susanvelasquez.com.
