WRITING:

A TIMELESS ART

Victor M. Taylor

All living creatures communicate in one way or another.  Whether it be dogs who bark and growl or who through their bodily actions – tail wagging or tail between one’s legs – show whether they are happy or fearful, or whales who emit different sounds like clicks, whistles and pulsed calls and whose slapping the water with their fins and tails when they breach the surface of the sea deliver different messages, or butterflies who communicate with each other through chemicals like pheromones or ants who communicate with each other likewise through the secretion of chemicals or even vibrations, all fauna (including humans) have their own forms of communication.

Flora, on the other hand, send messages through volatiles, a group of chemicals which travel like gases both above and under the ground.  Trees communicate through their roots, through what is called a mycorrhizal network, fungi which attach themselves to the roots of several trees, thus facilitating the transmittal of “messages”.

But among all these living creatures, it is only humans who have left a record of their messages, whether they be through the prehistoric cave paintings, the oldest one of which is believed to date back 45,000 years ago, to hieroglyphics, cuneiform writing and alphabetic writing.  These messages were written on rocks, clay tablets, wood blocks, papyrus and paper until today’s digital communications systems.

What will the next revolution in human communications be?

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