Ever since I was a girl living in The Netherlands I wanted to live in England. In my native tongue England translates into Angel land and the English Language into Angels. As a child I decided that it must be a magical place and my only mission was to speak the language of the Angels and live in their country. I would spend hours reflecting on the origin and meaning of the words that angels spoke and one word that has always stood out for me was the pronoun ‘I’. It is written with a capital to make us realise that we are dealing with an individual in the same way we write names with a capital letter but to me it seemed weird that it was the only capital letter in the words referring to ourselves and the individuals around us. You, me, we, them, us - none of them have a capital letter and the official reason never made much sense to me. I’ve looked at other languages and as far as I know there isn’t another language in the world that writes I with a capital letter.
In the world today the American dream is seen as an ideal, the free market of capitalism and consumerism is used as a role model for most economies. Most people in this system are out to make it for themselves, it is an eat or be eaten environment where the strong are expected to use the weak as stepping stones to make their way to the top. A lot of us live isolated lives behind our phones and pretend to have a perfect life on social media. To hide the fact that we don’t have a perfect life we retreat behind a mask and fake persona making us lonely and depressed and in our isolation we try to fill the void of loneliness with stuff that we don’t need. The I has been glorified and from an early age we are taught that we need to focus on our self, our education, our image and our goals. Our money driven society is doing its best to turn us into self-absorbed, fake people with narcissistic tendencies, something most of us genuinely don’t want to be. The I truly is the most celebrated and highlighted word in our vocabulary, because we are raised to put our self on a pedestal and dedicate our lives to our success.
We have successfully capitalised the I.
As I grew up observing people in this world I’ve always wondered if the I was a capital for another reason. Maybe I was meant to be the most important word for us in this life? I mulled on that for a few years and realised that the word I truly was, just not in the way that the world made I the most important pronoun in life. Having a natural strong connection to the divine I naturally saw the I as a perfectly balanced bridge between the earth and the heavens, its shape alone symbols a strong pillar that connects the bottom to the top. For me the capitals given to God, Jesus, Allah and Buddha where purposely done to remind us of our true mission as human beings. To aspire to grow into our divine nature, and to be reminded of that on a daily basis the I is written as a capital.
There is a reason the I is vertical and not horizontal, if the I truly was about our relation with the world around us it would have been written on its side. Since it isn’t I believe that our connection to our own heart, the earth we live on and the divine that guides us is what makes the I worthy of being a capital. One of the most beautiful things to see is that when people say I they automatically point towards their heart, do we subconsciously know that this is where we live? I believe so and if we are born to live from our heart we need to dedicate a part of each day to looking at ourselves, our motives, our dreams and our shadows. Isn’t it funny that eye is a word that is pronounced the same way as I, only spelled in a different way. This to me is not a coincidence but a vital clue telling us that we need our eyes to look deeply within for insights into what is holding us back from connecting to who we are and what we stand for. By looking at why we do the things we do and what it rewards us with we can start to navigate towards our heart and find our true nature. It is only from that place that we can find real peace, true contentment and lasting happiness.
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