On Writing, Symbols and Communication
Symbols used to captured
whole statements and stories. I would say the letters we use today are
the offspring of symbols and evolved from them. Where there used to be a
single inscription that meant a phrase or a sentence, gradually with
the standardization of alphabets, groups of symbols (letters) became
representative of ideas and became generic.
And so today we are going back to the same whereby if someone wants to say: "I'm feeling happy" he simply inscribes (types on his keyboard): smile emoticon
And with a single 'symbol' a person now expresses themself! And if we look at ancient texts we find that they were more pictorial which meant that they expressed more with less. It is the advancement of standardized alphabets that gifted mankind the ability to 'document' and opened the door to this never-ending quest for full expression.
We write, write and write some more! We define, refine and confine only to discover that we're entwined in a maze and hooked between forked tines!
So it seems writing is changing back to symbols, in the use of smileys and emoticons.
History is replete with how people 'evolved' from differentiation to integration. Earlier societies continuously attempted to distinguish themselves from the 'other' and show how disparate they were. This meant that mediums such as language and writing kept going through a process of 'purification' to arrive at something unique.
However gradually societies began to integrate and with this came the need to find common ground and unifiers. This meant another round of change which saw the specific being sacrificed for the universal generic. Thus today 'red' universally (with exceptions of course) signifies 'danger' while X means no, and so on and so forth.
Ultimately, today more than ever humans want - nay 'need' - a universal language to ease communication because there is too much 'noise' created by the din of a million voices of distinction. And in this lies the solution.
Perhaps we need to talk less in order to hear more.
Maje Amin 201603312009hrs
And so today we are going back to the same whereby if someone wants to say: "I'm feeling happy" he simply inscribes (types on his keyboard): smile emoticon
And with a single 'symbol' a person now expresses themself! And if we look at ancient texts we find that they were more pictorial which meant that they expressed more with less. It is the advancement of standardized alphabets that gifted mankind the ability to 'document' and opened the door to this never-ending quest for full expression.
We write, write and write some more! We define, refine and confine only to discover that we're entwined in a maze and hooked between forked tines!
So it seems writing is changing back to symbols, in the use of smileys and emoticons.
History is replete with how people 'evolved' from differentiation to integration. Earlier societies continuously attempted to distinguish themselves from the 'other' and show how disparate they were. This meant that mediums such as language and writing kept going through a process of 'purification' to arrive at something unique.
However gradually societies began to integrate and with this came the need to find common ground and unifiers. This meant another round of change which saw the specific being sacrificed for the universal generic. Thus today 'red' universally (with exceptions of course) signifies 'danger' while X means no, and so on and so forth.
Ultimately, today more than ever humans want - nay 'need' - a universal language to ease communication because there is too much 'noise' created by the din of a million voices of distinction. And in this lies the solution.
Perhaps we need to talk less in order to hear more.
Maje Amin 201603312009hrs
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