Breakthrough and "Residence " versus Place of "Residence" and all that Jazz

Breakthrough

There are two things I learned from the Corsican Midget (Napoleon Bonaparte)

1. The word "impossible" is not in my vocabulary, by which I mean my first reaction to any challenge is hope and potentiality. However, I do not equate hope with wishful thinking. To me, Personal God and Heaven are myths designed for fools and cowards and weaklings. 

2. Opportunities only come to those who are prepared.

Last night I had a good luck sitting next to a thirty-something Armenian dude who told me about his father who overcame late-stage prostrate cancer by following to the letter the Gerson therapy. You may think I am gullible, but the chance encounter with the Armenian and his disclosure about his Dad hit me with a blinding clarity about my good luck and breakthrough. I immediately went on Groupon and ordered a deluxe juicer.  Then I went to the gym, with visions of longevity dancing in my head while homicidal impulses being washed out to the sea. In the sauna, I did Yoga stretching exercises with composure and serenity that had recently been absent. Perspiration poured out of me and I felt purged and cleansed of toxins, both physical and  mental (okay, ultimately speaking, there's no demarcation line between the physical and the mental. And you have to be highly evolved to be aware of that "fact"). I then soaked myself in the whirlpool for 20 minutes, experiencing peace.

After I got back to my place of "residence" (I think there's a difference between "residence" and "place of residence", but I am not very sure about that), I took out from the bookshelf a paper back edition of the French translation of a young female Italian author's debut novel. The book enjoyed huge success. By the way, she was a philosophy major in college. As I was reading the novel and struggling with the language, a joyful pride permeated my being. I told myself that I needed to replicate the experience more often. 

I then went to bed at reasonable hours and proceeded to have all kinds of weird dreams that called for some interpretations. But I think I understand the gist of these dreams. They are the calls and sirens of emotional independence and freedom. Attachment is a form of slavery. In essence, you have only yourself to love and take care of. We were born alone and will die alone. Life is a series of adjustments to our aloneness. Love is an undying fiction. The more I interact with humans, the more I detest most of them and wish them ill because they are liars and scumbags. Just when I thought I could trust somebody, their true nature shows in full splendor. 

Postcriptum:

Every time I pontificate about language usage, I am conscious of the possibility of making an ass of myself as Wilson did when he dared question Nabokov's proficiency in Russian. Anyway, a reader of mine said that the difference between "residence" and "place of residence" is similar to the difference between "house" and "home". I disagreed. The closest to "place of residence" is "dwelling". We use "place of residence" when we don't want to specify or don't know what kind of shelter in which the individual in question stays: a house, a rented room in a house, a condo, a mansion, a prefab house trailer, or a tepee. "Residence" implies a stately, settled, prosperous-looking house. It is very difficult to use "residence" properly. 

Yesterday evening a barely educated native speaker of English brought up the issue of ungrammaticality of my statement: "He played the piano real good." I replied, "Son, you had a point, but maybe you didn't realize I was just speaking colloquial English. In modern spoken American English, there's a tendency for the speakers to use adjectives in place of adverbs. Maybe that's the recursion to the Germanic roots of English or maybe Americans are just getting lazy and don't bother to add the suffix "-ly". I am no linguist. So I don't know." By that time, a pretentious eavesdropper chimed in,  "Well, in Spanish and French, adjectives and adverbs are used interchangeably, as in German." I replied, "I don't know French and Spanish well, but I don't believe that's the case. Would you give me an illustration?" The dude then cited the case of "bueno" and "bien" in Spanish. I pointed out to him that "bien" is often used as an adverb, and only as an adjective when indicating state of well-being, as is the case of "well" in English. "By the way," I added, "don't use 'no problemo' when pretending to speak Spanish, as it's strictly not grammatical, unless you deliberately use the expression as an American slang."

 

The point of this diatribe is that to really know a language, it takes a lifetime of immersion and devotion. I only know one language well enough to express myself in writing in it. And I make mistakes everyday.