You are not a student.
If your love were gravity, how much would you weigh? If stars were watchful eyes, could you look them back?
We are not students; we are voyageurs. The slump of post-pandemic Britain has left many feeling confused while resolute, free while burdened, terrified while hopeful. This website is an expression of those fondly begotten notions, and exists as a testament to the international community that you, as you are alive, are qualified to write. Not as a carpenter who can’t tell the difference between stocks of wood, or an accountant who slips decimal points into the wrong position, but as people. The oral tradition that persists even now, the schools of art that evolved out of ecclesiastical doctrine, not altruism, and the clay-stained chalk walls of caves long forgotten all exist as a fact of, not despite, art’s need. How do you qualify the peoples of the world when good art is more elusive than the greatest scientific feats, and when a menagerie of doctrines claim to have its blueprint?
Informing the next, the present, and even past generations. Building communities of polemics and supporters. To read, to write, to open our hearts. Could such study be any nobler?
But we are not students; we are explorers. What can one do, in the face of didacts and entrepreneurs, other than pay heed to these words: 19:14 will always be a free-use website for the exploration of English, written, spoken and read, and anything with its label will never be beholden to copyright. 19:14 is not the answer. It is the very admission of the question.
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James Reddy
Founder of 19:14