This week: Communication Edited by: Robert Waltz More Newsletters By This Editor
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A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
—Mark Twain
Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
—Unknown |
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In the beginning, all was One. Until it suddenly wasn't, after which everything in the Universe started trying desperately to communicate with everything else.
Communication is a transfer or exchange of information, and is a basic part of life. Whether through simple chemical processes, scent (pheromones), visual displays, or sound, living things find it advantageous to communicate, whether it's a bee demonstrating the way to a prime source of pollen, a cat meowing for its dinner, or humans sending radio waves at each other.
Over short distances, we use sight and sound: language and gestures. Our technological development has given us the ability to communicate even across vast distances, and, at least in one direction, across time.
Writing, then, is communication. Even those who only write for themselves can be seen as practicing internal communication. We think of ourselves as separate entities; even an individual body is composed of its various cells—but these individuals thrive only in communication with each other.
With the development of the internet, we now have effectively instant communication across the globe. So you're familiar with one means of communication; you're using it right now.
In fantasy and other genres such as science fiction, however, it's possible to speculate on other means of communication. Can there be two-way information transfer across time, and how would paradoxes be resolved? How would telepathy work—direct communication between minds? Over interplanetary distances or more, what could get around the light-speed limit on information transfer?
A lot of what used to be this sort of speculation has come to life. What's a smartphone if not a magic mirror? (Mine even has a mirror mode.) So what can you come up with that will, one day, become a reality? |
Some fantasy communicated to you for your enjoyment:
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Last time, in "Ghost Forests" , I wrote about the death of forests.
Annette : That reminds me of the acid rain we had in Germany that killed part of the Black Forest. It might have been around the same time. You are a little older than me and I remember hearing about it when I was in the older elementary years and middle school.
I still want to go to the ghostiest forest of them all: The Petrified Forest.
Imagine my disappointment when Kid Me found out that the Petrified Forest was basically a desert with colored rocks lying around, and not a huge stand of stone trees. Of course, I eventually realized that colored rocks can be pretty cool too, as they represent the remains of things that lived hundreds of millions of years ago.
brom21 : Forests are one of my favorite fiction environments. They fill me with a mystified awe. So many emotions can manifest in these placid, serene landscapes-unless it is haunted where trepidation and fear fills one's resolve. Thanks! I really enjoyed this!
In some stories, the forest represents the unknown, and fear thereof. Depending on the words you use to communicate the setting, it could be that, or it could be the wonder of nature, or, as you note, awe. With the forest gone, from being ghosted or from timber operations, much of the mystery and life are gone.
So that's it for me for July—see you next month! Until then,
DREAM ON!!! |
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