I have clumsily stumbled upon an obvious revelation. An underlying inefficiency has plagued our every attempt at written communication since the invention of Hieroglyphics.
Be more deliberate with your time.
Spare your Focus the Reading. Reading is work! What we’re really interested in is “Reality.” And our written language is several degrees removed from “Reality.” Is it not?
There is the idea. Then, there is the Instant Referencing of a Verbal Catalog. Then, Verbal Judo! Out come the Spoken Words. Then, the Breakdown of those Sounds into Audio Sub-Parts to allow representation by Letters. The Visual Analysis of those letters, demodulating them into a Mental-Audio Sound Bite. And, at last, some Abstract Mental Model of that Idea’s Essence. A Manifestation, from which elicits a Vague Neuro-Chemical and Spiritual Reaction.
Hey, it puts us in the neighborhood of our target. But all that stuff in the middle makes it kind of like riding a Stage Coach across country. It gets you there. But only after Prolonged and Severe Agitation.
Non-linguistic visual stimulation removes the inner hose kink.
Consider this quote of a quote.
“Suppose a person were to make all kinds of figures of gold…—somebody points to one of them and asks what it is. By far the safest and truest answer is [to say] that it is gold; and not to call the triangle or any other figures which are formed in the gold “these” as though they had existence … And the same argument applies to the universal nature which receives all bodies—that must always be called the same; for, while receiving all things, she never departs at all from her own nature, and never…assumes a form like that of any of the things which enter into her; … But the forms which enter into and go out of her are the likenesses of real existences modelled after their patterns in a wonderful and inexplicable manner….”
That’s Plutocrates, according to Wikipediatotle.
Plutocrates is talking about “forms,” but he might as well be talking about words, and, as far as we’re interested, talking about written words.
There are “forms,” and there is the essence of that on which those forms are based…the “formness,” or the pure and ideal form.
But, the Delta between what is conceived and what is communicated is so great that it is akin to two people holding forth their hands, to touch one another, only to find a pane of glass in between their hands, so they touch the glass in pretty much the same place.
But, really, that only describes the inadequacies of the spoken language in dealing with ideas and concepts, and so forth. Here, we are writing about the written language. So, it would seem appropriate, that our touchers are actually blind, and that someone has to describe to them Where Their Hands Are, since they cannot even rely on their sense of sight to substitute for their Inability to Touch. Clearly, one can rely on their sense of sight when reading the written word (presuming they are not physically blind…let’s not get too far afield, here), so their blindness would only be representative in this case. Such is the Written Word in comparison to ideas and concepts that spawned the attempt at communication.
So, what is the solution? Well, to my knowledge, with the exception of Chinese, and such languages as still use symbolic pictorials to communicate, we’ve long since abandoned the idea of using a Uniform system of graphics to represent anything and everything. Anyway, ask any Sinophone who knows, that form of communication is inefficient because it takes long to learn and is difficult to remember. The Egyptians, of course, abandoned their own Pictorial Symbology in favor of a Phonetic system. So much so, that no one even could remember the old system…until the Rosetta Stone showed up, as you may know.
Anyway…there I sit, in the restaurant, with the waitress wanting me to hurry up, and I can’t seem to make my way through the menu, which is full of all sorts of flowery descriptions of the food, all written out In Text! I mean…can a brother get a picture of what he’s going to eat? Better yet…make it Scratch -n- Sniff.
Anyway, I’ve got to run. I’m in a hurry! I have to go and coax my daughter to practice piano. It’s a struggle, you know. She doesn’t want to learn to read the notes. She wants to play everything by ear.
