Miraculous To Be Here

We are a production line, difficult for me
to learn how to become a brick in the wall
learn to live 1984 without original thought
no innovation, following procedures, trans-
lation as automatic, for every term there
is a context-based rule

Translation principles are inviolate, cold
menacing words without rhythm, rhyme
or melody rendered in a prescribed way
though painful working in line, I am staying
the course because I love my colleagues
as friends, try to fathom their pain

Official group effort produces standardised
translations, if government officials cannot
accept that, they cannot stay in production
Simone Weil stuck with her factory job, I am
trying the same though my over-active mind
causes me pain

The friends and life experience I have gained
give meaning to life, it is worth all sacrifice to
learn how to socialise, learn loyalty and trust
to some it comes naturally, it cost me a lot
of sweat and blood, it is miraculous to be
privileged enough to be here…


George Orwell: “1984”

http://www.rivertext.com/weil2.html

Simone Weil was born in Paris in 1909
into an affluent close-knit family. She quit
teaching to work and live for a year at the
lowest level of the French factory system –
as an unskilled woman worker. She did
piece-rate factory work and because she had
poor manual dexterity and an over-active
mind she could not work efficiently enough
to pay rent and buy sufficient food.