Words capture time

  The Kish tablet is regarded by experts as the oldest written words. It is a cuneiform tablet. From what little I read not much more than wedge shaped characters. It's amazing to me that anyone could decipher that. I had heard of the Rosetta stone and that made sense to me. You could compare a known language to the unknown. Of course you have to assume that all three inscriptions say the exact same thing. I'm not disputing the validity of the findings, just saying. We do, after all, only have a part of the whole as the other half of that stone is missing. But whatever the case is, I was thinking about the written word this morning. Well, to be more exact, how our words are recorded. 

   I thought about that after looking for something in my desk. I moved some stuff around and found a cache of cd's. You remember those marvels of engineering don't you? I could play them, I still have that tech but it would take some effort to do so. I remember being duped into buying into that craze. The music was so much better, easily searched and just like being in the studio. I admit, I was impressed after buying my first cd player. This was going to be the future for sure! I set those cassette tapes aside. Sure, I had eight track before that, lp's before them and 45's as a teenager but cd's would last forever. Well, until they weren't used anymore, replaced by sd cards and today things are simply streamed. All that is required is the technological device to decode that. And that is what writing is. Writing is code. Now we write code to record words. 

  I have wondered about this in the past. We hear today that some people can't read cursive writing, although I believe those are extreme cases. There are about four thousand written languages in the world today. I read where there are about 7000 languages. So that means there are lots of people talking that have no method of writing things down, must be tough going to the grocery store. I just wonder if in the future will people be able to decode our "writing" in use today. What I mean is, play an eight track, cassette, cd or sd card. I've heard a theory that we were once an advanced civilization, that's who built the pyramids and other marvels, but we somehow lost that technology. We tried writing it down with those "glphs" the ancient people used but we haven't actually deciphered them at all. The technology to decode them was lost. 

  The writing of words is quite the amazing thing really. A bunch of symbols that I can arrange to express thoughts. We only have 26 such characters. The human brain is an amazing computer. We can learn to recognize and arrange those symbols and convey just about any human condition you can imagine. In fact, we can even describe what we imagine. Just 26 letters. We did add in other symbols to let others know when to stop reading, when to pause, and when we really mean it! Heck we use certain words today to convey the strength of our convictions, the fouler the language , the stronger the conviction. But in a few centuries will that be understood by those reading our words. I have serious doubts about that. 

  Still the written word is a permanent thing. That's what I think anyway. You don't need any outside technology to decipher the code. You can carve it in stone and it will last thousands of years unchanged. All you need to know is the code. If you want to remember something what is the best advice? Write it down. There is something about writing things down that creates a permanence. Recording whatever it is doesn't have the same effect. Sure you can play it back and hear that message again, but what if you can't play it back, will you remember? I still write things down. "I will not talk in class" is something I wrote on a chalkboard one hundred times and I have never forgotten it. I got the message. I still talked in class though, go figure. 

  All these years and all these blogs I have written using 26 characters. I have inputted them into a computer. Now I have printed a number of them out, a hard copy they call that. I have done that deliberately thinking to retain a copy for future generations to read. If I had the funds to do so I would have each year printed and bound into a volume a year. There is nothing better than a book on a shelf to retain words. Just how many words have I written? I don't know but it isn't the words that are important, it is the thought. That is what I'm attempting to pass on to the next generation and beyond. Words capture time. My words capture my world and my time. The hope is to share that forever. My words will make me immortal! It's as close as I can get to that. All that is needed is for someone else to read them. That's not too much to ask, is it?