Reflection 6

The invention of writing was extremely crucial to the establishment of the world’s great ancient civilizations because it, in turn, invented history and formal education. Before writing came to pass, the earliest humans developed gestures and grunts as a form of communication. Being able to write and share ideas and concepts only moved communication into a different stage. Writing, in its early stages, was merely pictures that held a meaning, like pictographs. The meaning of these pictures depicted by drawings carved into pieces of clay tablets. Without writing, people from generations so long ago wouldn’t have been able to document the things learned and developed. Of course, to develop writing a set of alphabet had to be developed as well. One cannot write sentences without first having words and letters. Similar to the age old saying, “You must crawl before you walk.” History is defined as chronological record of events of the life of or events of a people or institution. If we weren’t able to document such events we would probably have to start each civilization with each new generation that comes along. Or we would have had to pass along history by word of mouth. Yet, with that technique, things tend to get trickled down and information paraphrased and then ultimately changed. So the history they would’ve started with would have changed to another history after a while. While writing this reflection I began to think by what medium I would be able to express my own thoughts and feelings if it weren’t for the people who came up with the concept of writing. I would really have had to become a person who worked with pottery. Either these people were really cocky and wanted to be remembered long after they left the earth (which they are) or they wanted to let the people who were to come know of the things that transpired in the early days (which they did). Not being able to record events in the world would leave everything a crazy predicament. What if we weren’t able to record the cures for any diseases that we may have developed? Would scientists hire people to remember the formulas? What a world we would have! Gladly, we were blessed with the folks who conceived writing and over time, like a child, the structure of writing remained the same, but it has developed and evolved into a more effective form of communication.


'Oooowwwwwwwwwww"