Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Symbols

Symbols

A word is an arrangement of symbols along a queue. In writing the English language there are twenty-six (26…my favorite number) to choose from. These words form or assist in the forming of images and these images are strung together into concepts and these concepts become thoughts and thoughts ideas and these ideas aggregate into bodies of knowledge which are the building blocks of chapters that make up books and the books volumes …. (You might choose a different arrangement in the elements I have just described) but I’m sure you get the idea, just keep in mind it all starts with a symbol.

It is my view that the answers to all the questions we have about life are scattered about us and as we go blithely, helter-skelter, persuing the needs Maslow helped us order…we are surrounded by eternal truths that are so common that we just don’t see them anymore….In other words the more we deal with the trees the more invisible the forest becomes.

For example take the cycle of the seasons…We see spring as a time for renewal, summer as a time of growth, fall as a time for harvest and winter as a time for struggle. As we live each part that is what we see. Even though we go through the cycle of seasons, say ninety times in the course of a lifetime at any moment we are caught up in a phase of the cycle and an event that captures our attention.

In nature there are many cycles…energy flows in a cycle, our life is a cycle, the week is a cycle, women have a cycle, the weather has a cycle, the tides have a cycle. Am I boring you? At any point in time we are somewhere in the loop of many concurrent cycles that circle our awareness like electrons spinning about an atom. We are continously in a state of motion, twisted, buffeted and turned by these cycles that take us around in circles and then start us back at the beginning all over again.

I know you’re wondering where all this is leading…what do cycles have to do with words and symbols.
People have been walking around on this planet long enough to begin to leave a record of their experience….In the beginning that record was language or spoken words….sounds were the symbols but sounds were not as efficient a way of recording experiences as a new invention…the written word…While sounds could be passed on in living anthologies of stories and histories, the invention of writing provided a method that was much less vulnerable to break-ups in a social cycle…The written word could survive catastrophes to be rediscovered while the spoken word was soon lost in the vicissitudes of nature and the times…

Hold this thought if you are able or inclined to do so….I am suddenly overwhelmed by the demands in a phase in one of life’s recurring cycles….be glad you’re spared the sound, graphics and fumes…If you get the drift....’ll be back tomorrow…