Words

Consider the Mount Rushmore of human inventions: fire (of course—although this may have been more of discovery than an invention); the wheel (this choice no doubt informed by images of creative cave people from endless numbers of New Yorker cartoons); music (not including, for sure, the “Cars for Kids” song); and my favorite, the written word (in general, not necessarily what you’re reading right here.)

It's the height of human ingenuity, if you ask me, to be able to convert simple shapes—on cave walls, papyrus, palm leaves, rag bond paper, a computer screen, etc.—into words, which then can convey ideas and events, which later can be read and (sometimes) understood by another person or groups of people sometime—even centuries—afterwards for their edification, enjoyment, and consternation, sometimes all at once.

How did this happen?  Which came first, reading or writing?  Did one of our proto-human ancestors scratch something out on a rock, say to him or herself, “Boy, I wish I could read this?”, and then figure out how to decipher it?  Or did they have something they wanted to communicate already in mind and scratch out the words for it afterwards?

Or maybe some of both.  (I know, by way of analogy, that I often don’t know what I want to say until I write it down; case in point, this very idea!)

What’s especially amazing about the written word is how pervasive it is.  Once you have the ability to read, you can’t avoid it.  Suppose I write these words: Don’t read this!

Oops!  Too late!

So, as soon as our prehistoric ancestor put their words down on that rock, it was all over; there was no turning back into species-wide illiteracy.  The road from scratching on the cave walls to contemporary post-modern literature was set and the inevitable result of it would inevitably include this very page of words you are reading; even if you try to stop, too late!