On a Saturday night at the local mall one of the stores that is packed is the bookstore. Although information is easily accessible to individuals the lure and feel of books in ones hands is irresistible to clients. The visual and tactile nature of books lends itself to a certain amount of satisfaction that is not had by a computer screen. Will written text survive as a means to communicate. Definitely!
Written text is an essential record of our existence.
Many civilizations have come and gone through the millenniums of time. Their records are now precious to modern men, their histories are our history. Archaeologists spend their lives deciphering pictographs and inscriptions left on cave walls to understand the paths of mankind. As modern men evolves and discovers new ways to communicate and transfer information it is easy to forget what history has taught us of the past. Eons ago civilizations existed that now are only a blip on stone tablets.
One example of the importance of written text that we can see is the “Rosetta Stone”. Discovered in 1799 it was a doorway to understanding the once indecipherable hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. This precious artifact of mundane information is incalculable in its worth to human kind. This information was written on a slab of rock in three languages, Hieroglyph, Demotic and Greek. The information that was inscribed upon it has opened many avenues to understand the past as well as the present.
Do we run the risk of being forgotten as other civilizations?
Modern man has the failing of forgetting the past, too easily. We may call ourselves advanced, but we can fall prey to the same devastations, warfares, and plagues as past civilizations. As we reflect on the past and compare it to the present we can see our world all too clearly. Our cities and countries are so much more vulnerable than we believe. We only need to look at recent historical events such as the tsunamis that occurred in Asia, hurricanes in the United States, diseases and earthquakes in several areas of the world to recognize how important the written word is to remembering.
On many continents there are the remains of the past. We pore over the remnants of the past carved by scriveners and artisans to keep their civilizations alive in the minds of the future. It is just as important for us to be remembered. Of course, the form of record keeping may change, but nevertheless written text is essential to our survival. Although there will always be the new, the old will always be an essential to our future as a species.
