What’s In A Word?

By Sanjay Sudarsan

entity /ˈɛntɪti/ | noun | plural: entities

• a thing with a distinct and independent existence.

If I were to ask you what comes to your Zoom-fatigued mind when I say “well-being”, would it be the word entity? I’m fairly certain that it is not an association that would strike you immediately. You might, perhaps, think of institutions of well-being and then eventually find yourself knocking at the entity’s door — much like I did. However, I felt like I had used the elevator rather than the stairs to reach this door because the connection felt rather obvious. In the true spirit of a Political Science major, I wanted to challenge myself and explore better ways in which I could connect the word entity with the work we do at the Ministry of Community Well-Being.

In the process of my exploration, I began to uncover the characteristics that constitute an entity. I’d like to think that when the dictionary declares that entities refer to things that are distinct and independent, it indicates freedom from the influence and the presence of strength — individuality and uniqueness even. Thus, for me, entities are that which you look up to as quintessential in order to conceptualize the very notion of well-being. These entities, then, do not just assume the form of institutions that advocate for and promote mental health but of one’s close friends and family as well. It is their separate existence that gives them substance, so to say — the fact that their story does not influence their functioning and vice versa.

We can then say that entities are ubiquitous — there’s one lurking behind every door and peering out of every window. While this declaration may sound like the script for a Supernatural episode or an Economics lecture, it’s significant in that who we are as human beings depends on those entities that we recognise. Not to be confused with business and other organizational entities, our sense of self is mediated by the intersection of human entities in the abstract and much so often, in the recognition of the only mildly terrifying not-so-abstract.

To end with the inspiration herself, here are a few lines from “Entity” by Amelia Murray. These helped me challenge how I perceive the word ‘entity’, an image that I am happy to have explored. It derives the power to become more and more relatable and meaningful every day fromthe fact that we have been in lockdown for almost nine months!

“ I felt my Half ripped away.

Only a cold emptiness remains,

but for the nine months you had left -

it seems it was a life for a life.”