Kendal Lamarand
Dr. Steven Krause
English 328
September 27, 2001
Lucky Me !
Long before the United States and even before the Roman Empire there were peoples wandering all over this globe. The Egyptians who developed Hyroglyphics, and the Sumerians drawing their Cuneiform were two of the earliest forms of writing technology. Other cultures were not as advanced, and the only records they had were cerebral. Some African cultures relied on what is known as a "griot". They would know the essential historical accounts and valuable lessons of the tribe, and kept the only records of it in thier memory. These stories would be passed on from generation to generation, making the griot one of the most quintessential members of the tribe. These ancient civilizations had access to berries and twigs and stone, but they did lack the most important technology of all; an alphabet. I can honestly say that I have never been more greatful towards the inventor of the alphabet. I also felt great relief that my assignment was to invent my own writing technology as opposed to inventing my own alphabet.
However, upon being confronted with the task of writing something without paper, a pen, pencil,crayon, etc., I instantly felt at a loss. I can barely write a paper anymore unless I am sitting at a keyboard watching my words become digitized. I decided the best route to take was just to sit and devote an hour or two of my time to arrive at the most ingenious plan my teacher had ever heard. Well, incidentally, that "plan" never popped into my head so I sought an alternative route...trial and error.
My first stroke of inspiration told me to use the juice of raspberries on small rocks (one or two words per rock), but I soon recognized that the words would be too blurry to read. The second approach I took was similar to the first; again I used raspberries (these were from a u-pick farm to decrease the technocological value), but this time I tried writing on a larger stone surface. The difficulties I encountered here were similar to before; my "brush", a leaf, did not spread the berry juice well. By now I was becoming frustrated by all of my ideas that were not working. I am sure this was partially because I was doing this on Wednesday night and the project was due on the previous Tuesday afternoon. It was then that I decided to brave the rain and go out to the yard to find something (anything!) I could use. I thought about twigs or grass, but finally chose a utensil which would allow me to discontinue the use of the messy berry juice; another rock. I tested it and found it worked just fine so I turned my atention to what brilliant thing I wanted to say.
I contemplated writing, or should I say etching, a few lines of one of my poems, but could not find anything that I deemed significant enough for my "pen". It was while flipping through one of my journals that I came across a quote that I have always thought influential: " Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds"(A. Einstein). I know that my roommates would have preferred something shorter, for I believe the stone on stone scratching sound began to irk them before the first word was complete, but my mind was made up. Approximately a third of the way through I made a spelling error and was not sure how to correct it. I quickly learned that saliva
( I’m sorry, I know it’s gross) did almost what an eraser can do. Although it did leave a trace of the previous letter, it was better than nothing. I worked diligently for close to an hour before my plaques were completed, and then it was time to test my scribing abilities. Was anyone besides myself actually going to be able to decipher this message? While it was not like reading off of a page, it was legible enough for all to read.
From the very beginning of this project I was more concerned with what I would write, than what I was going to write with. I realized early in the thought process that I would have to be somewhat creative with my medium. I also had the full notion that what I wrote had to mean something; had to say something. My reasoning was that if this were one of the few means available to present an idea, the idea had better be worthy of the effort expended to enable it to be shared. I chose the Einstein quote because it is a positive message, something worth knowing. I must admit that although I chose it for the positivity factor, the use of this quote was inspired by the trauma that surrounded our nation as an effect of the terrorist attacks
If this assignment has taught me nothing else, I have learned how spoiled I am and how much I take for granted the technologies that have always been available to me. Even though the tools may have been accessible to humans for centuries, it would have been simpler for them to pass on information by word of mouth. The time it takes to speak one hundred words is still less than the hours it would have taken to scrawl even half of them.
While I realize that most difficult aspect of writing technology, the alphabet, has been readily available to me my entire life, I have most definatley disregarded the ease with which I have always been able to reproduce it. I believe that this assignment will make me more appreciative of the developments made over the centuries in order to make life for recent generations so much simpler than it was in the past.
My Writing Portfolio