My opinion on an original Torah would not be worth very much, as I can neither read nor understand Hebrew.

One of my favorite trilogies is the Remembrance of Earth's Past, by Liu Cixin, originally written in Chinese, translated by Ken Liu. If someone who understood only Telugu read Cixin's original Chinese version, they would find it completely unintelligible.

If that person were to offer their opinion on the novel's core themes, I see no reason to listen closely, as they wouldn't even be able to name the characters, much less anything else. Surely, this is perfectly reasonable? The entirety of that novel — from something as simple as chapter titles to something as complicated as something complicated — can not be parsed by someone who does not speak the language.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has displayed many works by Jean Dubuffet, a mid-1900s French painter/sculptor. His relevant quote: "Art is a language, an instrument of knowledge, an instrument of communication." The idea of art as language is incredibly well-supported, and you could quote the agreement of endless artists, philosophers, writers, and presidents (Eisenhower: "Art is a universal language and through it, each nation makes its own unique contribution to the culture of mankind.")

I do not know much about other people's relationships with art, and will try not to pretend to. Over the last few years, through a friend, I have been exposed to a lot more art in many contexts from hobby to Monet, and have had to try to develop a personal understanding and relationship with it. That has been incredibly difficult, and here I want to detail my poor attempt. Please do not think I think this writing is coherent or consistent.

I believe one of my fundamental roadblocks is not knowing whether or not I speak the same language as art. If we readily admit the Telugu speaker's opinion on Cixin's work is effectively worthless, how do I know my opinion on art does not have the same (lack of) value? How do I know I speak the same language as the painting? Here, sometimes, I can use a guard rail — some paintings supposedly seek to, amongst other things (I wouldn't know!), describe or encapsulate an emotion or a feeling, and I can take it as some proof of a shared tongue when the small white square with a description reassures me that I am feeling what the painting purports to make me feel. Somehow, the image and I must share some common understanding.

But as anyone who has taken any length of language courses knows, there is a very large gap between being able to transmit a single meaning (hello!) and a significantly more complicated message. So when I encounter art that holds my hand a lot less, like most modern art, and form some thoughts, how do I know which are from the painting and which are a result of me not understanding the language? I have not found a good answer to this yet. Text me if you find one, thank you.

So, at the end, I have no clue what the majority of art says, and most times I wander around a museum absolutely clueless and the little white cards mock me. I have heard them laugh behind my back.

Unfortunately, it only gets worse. Eventually, I am asked what I think. What the hell do I answer? At least if two people are shouting in French I can tell you something from the volume. Here? Nothing! Why would I think something? How could I? I can not tell you what I think because I am waiting for the painting to tell me something. I am waiting for it to speak in some way I can understand, and I have no clue how to learn its language.

"It's like talking to a wall, honestly" - every wall I've walked by in an art museum.

I do not know how to extract that useful answer to "What do you think?" from the painting. Give me a ruler, I can tell you its size, give me a scale, I can tell you its weight, give me a matchstick, I can tell you how attentive the guards are.

"What do you think?" You ask someone to inspect a house. He stands outside and pokes the roses in front for ten minutes and never goes inside. Do you care what he thinks? No. Would you move in after hearing his testimony? No, because his opinion has no weight, and if he were sane enough to recognize that, he should discard his opinion too! Fortunately I am sane enough to discard my own opinion.

Then I am asked what I feel. Sometimes this is helpful, but I do not think there is a very big difference between the two questions. We feel scared looking into the barrel of a gun because we think there is a chance of harm. We feel happy looking at a gift because there might be something nice inside. I don't seek to prove that every feeling is based off of some conscious thought, but if we can not tell the difference between one based off of thought (possibly an incorrect one) and not, what point is there considering the alternative? What I feel might be equally misled — perhaps I am feeling fear, but I am staring down an empty pipe and not a barrel, or feeling happy opening a gift forgetting my friend recently learned how to make glitterbombs?

But sometimes I do feel things, and this is even more frustrating after some time. Clearly I can grasp small bits of the language as intended, I can understand when a painting is shouting something at me, but there is no nuance in my feeling that I can trust! It might all be misled, and I have no idea how to properly change this.

And then, over time, the realization of the implications of art outside museums. Architecture is art. Music is art. Literature is art. Every building makes fun of me, asking me why I know nothing of substance about architecture, why I am so unable to hold a conversation with it, and saying that maybe I should read a book. And then the book mocks me, because even in simple written English (a language I understand, but evidently not well) there are so many ideas I am incapable of understanding, because without hand-holding, how can I be sure that I interpret the subtext correctly? So I google it and the white square laughs at me again. I wonder if I listen to the same music hundreds of times on repeat because I won't know what new songs are saying.

So I try to approach the "classics", the works most universal, and for books this has worked best. I can slightly better understand the context, attitudes, and techniques used in writing the language behind the language, and as I read more and more diverse works in a given genre I am beginning to see properly the shared language there. Of course there is skepticism pointed at that supposed understanding, but I feel more secure there than elsewhere.

Whether or not I like something is obviously based off of what I think of it. When I have no idea what to think of it, how can I like or not like it? Sometimes I can offer a basic like/dislike, but hesitantly. So my opinions on anything "art" have lost most ground. It takes effort to say I like or dislike something aesthetically now, because me liking it might be a result of stupidly misinterpreting the language, and me disliking it might be much for the same reason. So opinions, feelings, and thoughts to do with anything aesthetic are under construction, sorry, please try again next week.

Recently I have been speaking with someone about music a lot, and we discuss it similarly. For music I can say which songs I "like", but this might just be because I am most familiar with them. I enjoy our conversations because he knows a lot about music that I do not, and this allows me to explain my aesthetic hesitations in an attempt to learn. We were talking about the old and new versions of a genre (I listen to the old version because I would like to learn the language), and in explaining why he preferred the newer styles to the older stripped simpler styles, he said he "would like to hear some nonsense on the beat."

A clear, unambiguous, expression of aesthetic preference. No fear of not speaking the language, no asterisk, no doubt. From someone who knows unequivocally more than I do about music, just an opinion gorgeously devoid of clumsy, monolingual, inhuman uncertainty. White square be damned.

At this point, I have been very skeptical of aesthetic opinions, especially mine, for years. If I had felt myself thinking the same, I would have felt bad for having preference in something I obviously did not understand (would you form a preference for a computer based off the taste?) and would have partly forced myself to go back to the "classics" and try to understand.

(Let me make it clear that I don't believe all classics are better than all other works or something similar. Classics are said to have broad, general, sometimes accessible appeal and that is why I try to engage with them, not a misguided trust in establishment criticism, though I recognize its value.)

I do not know where to go from here, but I think I might believe I can find my own valid beliefs. I would like to like to hear some nonsense on the beat and not endlessly question it.

I would like to look at a piece of art and prefer it to another, to immediately feel something and be even the tiniest bit sure about my reaction. I would like to feel a low-level reaction upon seeing a building, and then to base a justifiable opinion off of an informed thought. I would like to know enough about just one aesthetic field to feel secure in my knowledge of its language, to for the first time speak back to it.