Note
Humans are unique in many ways. They are also akin to all other forms of life. However, we stand out from the backdrop of the evolutionary milieu in our ability and preference to write and record. We may never fully understand ourselves, but it is clear that writing, thinking, and narrative are intricately woven together with the mystery of human beingness. More so, these human feats are so common, that they appear to serve as a fundamental evolutionary advantage. The groundwork of innovation, technology, society, and history appears to rest on our ability to record our thoughts. Writing, more than a technological innovation, is a seemingly miraculous ability to etch information onto the fabric of reality itself, so that when the day comes and our thoughts no longer spring fourth from the tip of our tongues, our children, or our children’s children, or even a stranger whom we have never met before, may acquire the same ideas, emotions, and memories that once echoed through the chambers of our skulls.
In some sense, we have outsourced memory. Perhaps due to the environmental pressure of organizing larger and larger social groups, or perhaps due to the limits imposed upon us by the size of our brains. Regardless of the origin, we are here, with tools that rival the gods. The pen remains mightier than the sword for it was the pen that made the construction of the sword possible in the first place.
Wells of Inspiration
“What the brain really needed was space without volume. So it took a radical leap and did something unparalleled in the history of life on Earth. It began storing information and memories outside itself, on stone, papyrus, paper, computer chips, and film.”