Bluntly, common English attacks your capacity to be or become intelligent. If you do not somehow achieve a kind of escape velocity from this ‘drag’, what essentially happens is like a moth circling a flame to which it is chained. The intellect — relational, imagistic, and cognitive — slowly proceeds to execute a death spiral. This is not the absolute fate of every speaker, just common and usually partial fate of the the vast majority. Each of us is uniquely and deeply affected by the impediments imposed when we acquire English (and, indeed, most other languages).

The suppositions and habits of English transmit their repercussions into the form and structures of our memory, minds and relationships. This is particularly significant as it relates to the capacity not only to learn, but to discover new ways of learning.

One relatively effective antidote is to learn other languages, or expand English beyond the cage it comprises (poetics/literature/orphea — the study of and acquired ability to improvise rhetorical fallacies) — otherwise, the cage shrinks each time you activate it. This is like having a tool that reduces your capacity to use it … any time you do so. In our minds, such a situation is as tyrannical as it is commonplace… and we must insure it comes to an end in our generation.