Blog Post #1

Something that really resonated with me while completing the first reading assignment as well as during our discussion in class was the complexity behind a system that I, and the vast majority of the world, uses every day. Writing is one of the earliest, as well as one of the most far-reaching and enduring, forms of communicative technology. I had never truly considered the multitude of influences that developed writing, and it was an almost overwhelming thought to try to wrap my head around the gradual and multi-faceted journey that writing endured; From the economic origins of three-dimensional tokens, to the challenges that faced our distant ancestors of translating audible sounds into meaningful symbols- the art of writing had an arduous journey. The result, writing as we know it today, is a dexterous and flexible tool that is used universally. And so, this is what struck me as the most profound: The ability of the human species to accumulate the fragmented bits of information and influence that contribute to writing as we know it, (information that for these ancient influencers, was scattered across centuries, cultures, expanses of land and sea, and boasted a variety of functions) so that it was one day able to be used for an infinite number of permutations. From the earliest economic uses of writing, humans have created poetry, journalism, means of momentous communications between world leaders, ways of telling people when to “STOP” on the roadways and how much medicine to take, humans have created brail and can now translate languages based on logosyllabaries into languages based on alphabets using their phones. The variations and different arrangements that we can now warp the art of writing into are countless, and that is one of the most incredible feats of humankind.

Another thing that struck me during our class discussion this Tuesday, was how hard I had to think about some of the questions that were being posed and the concepts that we were approaching critically. What I particularly enjoy about classes like this one- that is, classes that are discussion based and allow students a fair amount of freedom in exploring and discussion very large, abstract ideas- is that they push me to think in ways I may not employ in my everyday life. Tackling expansive, theoretical concepts such as the hindrances and benefits of technology vis-à-vis the written language, or the functions of things like language barriers, colloquialisms, and regional dialects, takes a very different type of cognitive energy than, say, solving science equations. I Because I am not an expert on linguistics however, I sometimes get frustrated and feel as though I am skirting the crux of these concepts and cannot fully understand (nor would I be able to accurately articulate) the true core of these concepts. I tend to feel this way whenever I try to discuss or analyze something as integral and transcendent as language- other existential and cosmological topics. Despite all of this, I do feel that, although I may not always be fully successful in tackling these concepts, it encourages me to keep trying to think in ways that are challenging and sometimes overwhelming to me. In a strange way, the realization that I cannot fully make sense of these phenomena is exciting, because even being aware of my ignorance, or incapability to fully comprehend the complexity of those problems feels like a step in the right direction. If that makes no sense, it’s in the same vein as the Socratic Paradox: “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing”.