Schindlersword

the origin of humanity

Beat Schindler

Do you want a fresh perspective now but cannot figure out how?

By In words

What is FRESH PERSPECTIVE and why isn’t everybody talking about it?

Well, I haven’t lately told my readers about FRESH PERSPECTIVE, partly because I’ve been out for a large part of 2022 (for health reasons) and also because in the time since then, I’ve been busy doing research and publishing THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY, the new book now available in paperback and ebook from Books on Demand and Amazon.

THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY answers the questions of how it all began and how to move forward in an insanely uncertain world.

Biased for having written the book, as you’d expect, I’m acutely aware that it might offend certain word-users. But most of all I believe it is well worth reading for anyone interested in how we’ve come about.

If that’s not you, then please simply recommend THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY to your friends and acquaintances. Thank you for spreading the word!

FRESH PERSPECTIVE is the social media name of THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY on which FRESH PERSPECTIVE is based.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates

“To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller

Both THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY and FRESH PERSPECTIVE are important and urgent contributions to making the Earth a better place for us to share with the other elements and species.

I believe that’s what brought you to this post, and if we begin with what we agree on, it’s easier to understand what I and this is all about.

It all began in my teenage years when I was still impressed by stories told by storytellers substantially taller and stronger than I was at the time — stories of worlds created by fictional characters, of promised lands, of humans and nature, separate from each otherm, of homo sapiens, and of mankind.

I was a handful back then, in my teenage years, and have remained so to this day, but hey, who wasn’t or isn’t, only to grow out of it when the time is right, to each their own.

It doesn’t mean I was convinced. All I’m saying is that I got used to it over time.

Now that my time has come, I can clearly see those early storytellers didn’t know what they were doing, nothing but pawns in their game, walls in their bricks, their teachings designed for the sole purpose of having me confused beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Whether a word-user is awake or asleep makes no difference.

“Call it a dream, it doesn’t change anything.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

You cannot win with a losing hand, and a losing hand exists only in the world of the word-user’s for self-evident reasons.

In the word-user’s world it doesn’t matter a Dickie bird whether a story or a word happened or not. All that matters is they are believed. And everybody knows that when you tell or repeat a lie, you are the first to know, so, that’s what happens every time beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Sure, lies and stories have been told for thousands of years, with no end in sight. There’s nothing new about it, but if you don’t know the difference between the two, there’s nothing more a storyteller can do for you.

Words — of which stories are made — have changed the world more than any other event before or since. They can do it again if we give them a chance.

On the upside, you don’t have to wait for the world to begin, for when you change the way you look at words, your world changes instantly .

The proof’s in the pudding

What have words got to do with changing your personal world, you might ask? Well, all kinds of things are being said, depending on who is saying them, and what to believe, or not, is a question of personal character and preferences, to each their own.

Fact is, words don’t describe the world.

If words did in deed describe the world, that means Google, Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and ChatGPT would be right, which clearly they’re not. On the contrary, they couldn’t be wronger if they tried.

Words do nothing but describe the world how the word-users look at it.

But the one who responds to the world will always be the word-user.

The best a word can do is co-respond

The same applies to god, universe, love, broken hearts, and life — in fact to everything you have a word for — for self-evident reasons.

Keep in mind that not long ago — when the age was stone, the Sahara green, Northern Europe under 1-mile thick ice, and writing hadn’t been invented yet — the first word-users were merely wishing for words. Now, a mere 10,000 years later, we’re drowning in them.

According to collins.co.uk there exist now 4.5 billion words in just English alone. You know I’m not making this up because I couldn’t even if I tried, and I’m not even trying. So, there you have it.

I share more thoughts about words and how to deal with them in my books, articles, and posts. Stay tuned for more on this topic — there’ll be much more at Schindlersword in the coming months.

I hope you’ll take a look.

Did you know that open heart surgery can be a curse and blessing? At the same time?

By In quotes, words

Wisdom I wish I’d known earlier

When a year ago I fainted, not for the first time, I ignored that open heart surgery can be both a blessing and curse at the same time.

Sure, there is nothing new about it. I had fainted twice before, back in my teenage years, when I banged my helmetless head against an ice rink and pool floor, but a year ago was my third faint and this time it was serious.

As a teenager, I used to believe what I was told. That means I believed even such bullshit as it makes a difference whether people are awake or asleep. But much water has gone under the bridge since, with lots of other stuff too.

Things have changed and I’m younger than that now.

Let me begin at the beginning

A year ago, I was in the process of doing research for my book, THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY, when all of a sudden, while boiling water for my afternoon tea, I fainted in my kitchen for no apparent reason, smartphone in hand, slow enough to call the paramedics who arrived quickly, picked me up sack of potatoes-like, took me in a special chair down my three flights of stairs to the waiting ambulance, laid me flat on a stretcher, which is the last event I remember, for transport to the nearby hospital, which I don’t remember at all for by then I had fainted completely.

As luck would have it, lucky me lives in Switzerland, a country where everything is nearby. Be it as it may, nearby wasn’t of much help because it would be four weeks anyway, before I re-membered anything again at all.

While in a state of faint, the 70% water and 30% fire-air-earth — that I’m made of, like you and everybody else — shut down. Or at least that’s how it felt. You don’t feel a thing. You also don’t use words to describe it. Only bystanders can see it and later tell you all about it.

After regaining the senses of my 70% water and 30% fire-air-earth, I re-membered only what I could not communicate to bystanders without blowing their minds and socks off which became quite clear rather quickly.

So I shut up and reduced myself to being told by a doctor, or was it maybe a nurse? that I had in the meantime survived the transport by ambulance to the nearby hospital, by ‘copter to the University hospital, the several hours of open-heart surgery, and the three weeks in a coma, to finally wake up in an intensive care unit that my sister tells me I’m mistaking for my apartment.

The mix of doctors and nurses also tell me that by the end of the week I’d take a taxi to spend my next 3 months at a nearby rehab clinic with fabulous views of the snowcapped Alps illuminated by the sun twice daily like Holly would.

None of it made any sense. They could as well have told me snowflakes keep falling on my head when Mother Frost beats her bedding.

Illustration by Otto Kubel

Without further ado, let’s get back to me, the patient.

I remember more from quotes than from fairy tales. Call me Stupendous Quote Man if you must, but among the ones in plain view of my third eye is the following:

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

Why am I telling you this?

It’s nothing, respectively it’s nothing but an attempt to let you partake in wisdom I wish I’d known earlier, namely that open heart surgery can be a curse and a blessing at the same time, because that wisdom might come in handy sooner or later.

The difference between miracle, blessing, and curse depends on how you look at it. And it’s not just about Albert Einstein of course. My handpicked quotes collection stands at 4,411 and counting, and includes the following.

That’s right, Polo Hofer, too, is right:

You know the end is near when the idiot killer shows up.”

Only people who’ve never been idiots in all their life shall escape, and I’d be a complete idiot to take myself out of it.

That’s right, Buddha is right, too:

The trouble is, you think you have time.”

No-one begins and ends life alive. If you think time is granted or that it’s all up to you, you’ll be in trouble before you know it.

Open heart surgery has granted me the wisdom to know that I’m mortal. Prior to that, I had the time to live till 2072. Now I know that without the doctors and nurses I wouldn’t have the time to watch my family, friends, and the world grow older and know much more than I ever will, nor would I have witnessed Jeff Beck in concert shortly before his death and listen to his music now, as we speak, without the pain of his absence while wondering who’s next.

Many of my inspirations are my generation, hence don’t have the trouble of thinking time’s on their side. And If my generation is mortal, what does that say about you and me?

That’s right, Yogi Berra is spot on too.

Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.”

Yogi spent his life in sports — a pro baseball catcher who later took on the roles of manager and coach.

If future results are predictable, you can get run over by a bus anytime, but if that’s so, then you know you’re not talking sports anymore.

That’s right, Seneca is equally right.

Words become works.”

When you decide your words well, they will follow you like a shadow that never leaves, beyond the shadow of a doubt. And as if that weren’t enough, when you keep your word, many decisions are already made.

Finally, needless to say but I say it anyway, Marcel Marceau is right too.

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?”

‘Nough said.

Six quotes are more than what most word-users can absorb in one reading.

Because nothing happens until it is believed, you might want to read this post again, but that, my friend, is all up to you.

We don’t make choices, we make decisions.

Quotes don’t inspire because they have been written by word-users like you and me — made of 70% water and 30% fire-air-earth — but because they have been written by word-users who decide their words well, for everybody to see.

I’m answering the TOP question I get asked about words: Do words matter?

By In history, words

The story of pre-wordic inventions

In the wordless world

In the wordless world, matter doesn’t exist for self-evident reasons.

In the wordy world

In the wordy world, matter describes what words do not have any of.

Self-energy is energy that does not exist until it is observed by an instrument that can detect it. But words have even less self-energy than that.

That is why words couldn’t matter if they tried, and why inside of a word-user, words cannot be detected by the most advanced x-ray, laser, MRI, scanner, and not even by the world’s most sensitive detector in existence, the LUX-Zeplin in South Dakota, USA.  

The only instrument on Earth that can detect a word inside of a word-user is the word-user itself.

The heart of the matter

A word-user’s heart may be cheating, dancing, trembling, aching, pounding, torn, broken, or breaking, simply because according to words, there is precious little a heart cannot do.

But what if the heart is just beating away quietly, doing its job? Then we tend to ignore it and take it for granted, don’t we? 

Years of research have led me to conclude that the word-users respond to words in the similar ways. If our words are just doing their job, we take them for granted.

But the heart of the matter it’s the word, not the heart, that explains why we use words and the wordless aren’t.

Are you trying to understand words and wanna cry?

By In history, words

To understand words is not a walk in the park.

I should know, for I stumbled upon words back in 2016.

7 years and 10,000 hours later I’m still only just getting started.

If you’re anything like me, you must not only discover but then also accept that there is a difference between Before Words and After Words.

Before Words vs After Words

Next, you work hard to understand the difference between word and words.

Word vs Words

If you’re anything like me one more time, the hardest part by a country mile is accepting that…

  • “Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating.” – Patrick Rothfuss
  • “What a word means, a sentence cannot say.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

And if that weren’t enough, you must also deal with wordusers telling you without fail that trying to understand words is hopeless and forlorn.

I did it anyway.

But that’s not all.

I also wrote a book — in English — that will help you understand words beyond the shadow of a doubt.

As a special preview, the book’s introduction reads like this:

THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY, WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT, investigates and answers what everybody wants to know.

  • How did it all begin?
  • What existed before humanity?
  • Why are we here and the wordless aren’t?

Origin can be denied only by confirming it, a word. The same applies to the beginning and to humanity.

Before words, words didn’t exist for self-evident reasons. After words, the only question on the table is when did words, the beginning, and humanity happen?

Have words been with us forever, or have they arrived only when mother Earth gave birth to herself 4.65 billion years ago? Or did the words appear 542 million years ago when the eyes appeared, or maybe 42 million years later, when the invention of the eyes was followed by the invention of the brain? Or did words happen perhaps only 300 million years ago when animals of the homo type first showed up? Could it have been on a Tuesday 6026 years ago when nothing happened?

To keep you from guessing, the first (spoken-only) words are estimated to have appeared between 9500 and 18000 years ago. When exactly doesn’t matter.

The 13750 years ago used in THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) is the average between the low and the high estimates.

13750 years ago, the age was stone, the Sahara green, Northern Europe under 1-mile-thick ice, and writing hadn’t been invented yet.

Please feel free to estimate the exact date yourself. After all, that’s what words are for.

Much water has gone under the bridge since, with much other stuff too, some good and some bad.

The wordless remain as wordless as ever, but the wordy have climbed to the top of the food chain second to none. The self-declared crown of evolution, ready for breakfast on Mars, and with our sense of humor we can look at what has changed — the glorious, the fantastic, the absurd, and the non-sensical — and laugh about it, not sure if that’s scary or funny or how it benefits us.

Only one thing is certain beyond the shadow of a doubt. Without our sense of humor, we’d all go insane. If we haven’t already.

Everybody knows that nothing good will ever come from fighting the old. It takes a fresh perspective that makes the old obsolete.

For this and other reasons as well, THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) invites you to look at words as an alien might.

As you read my book, new landscapes will unfold that everybody knows have been there all along.

But as you will notice, the unfolding is you.

Of course, my book can offend for other reasons as well.

But let’s begin in the beginning

I wanted to write a book that gives readers hope. I believe that’s why you are here, and if we begin with what we agree on, it’s easier to understand what THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) is about.

We probably haven’t had the pleasure to meet in person yet, so let me briefly introduce myself to you.

My name is Beat Schindler. That I’m passionate about the origin of humanity is new even to me.

In my younger years, I used to believe the stories told to me by storytellers typically stronger and taller than me.

I believed not only that the world had been created, but also that I’m part of a family, community, nation, people, humanity, and brotherhood of man. On top of that, I believed I was born human and, therefore, that I’m separate from nature.

I’m not saying I was convinced, but over time I got used to it.

When I was older, in 2016, it suddenly occurred to me that humanity could be a word.

Six years and many doubters later, it turns out that humanity is indeed what can be denied only by confirming it.

Now I’m driven by what I feel and no longer see the point in tarting it up.

I’m passionate about the origin of humanity as well as about the origin of words, because the two events are identical.

If it wasn’t for words, humanity wouldn’t exist.

I no longer believe anything is separate from nature. Everything is part of the origin, including us, the word-users.

I reside in a country where writing about the origin doesn’t get me silenced, imprisoned, or cost me my life.

Everybody wished that the governments all over the world loved their children, too, but everybody also knows the state the world is in.

Words

I hear you, what in the world have words got to do with the origin of humanity?

All kinds of things are being said about words, depending on who is saying them, and what to believe is a question of character and personal preference, to each their own. There’s nothing new about it.

The story of words

In the beginning are the wordless — fire, air, earth, water, cells, plants, animals, eyes, and brains.

Who’s telling the story doesn’t make any difference.

13750 years ago, when words arrived, though they did nothing but divide the time on Earth into the Before Words and the After Words, they also changed the world more than any other event before or since.

I think it is no exaggeration to say words are the origin of humanity.

I’m not one to make new opinions or to invent anything. Everybody knows the word is a gift we’re meant to keep.

I think it is no exaggeration to say that the word is also the origin of you.

The story of you

For without words, you doesn’t exist, and the reason we’re here and the wordless aren’t, is because we have words and the wordless haven’t.

  • “Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself.” – Patrick Rothfuss
  • “What a word means, a sentence cannot say.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

I agree with the above quotes 100%.

Nevertheless, in THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) I will do just that, talk of words the best I can to let you discover for yourself what words are, do, and have, how we respond to them, and what that says about us.

To produce the numbers, tables, and graphs in this book, I’ve worked with the help of the internet. I trust they will let you see what happened in liberating new ways.

Understanding words is never a question of quantity. There are always those who understand and those who don’t.

But on one thing, my friend, I give you my word.

When you change the way you look at words, the world changes.

Limits and truths

The truths and limits of your world have got nothing to do with what’s out there.

The limits and truths of your world have got everything to do with your meaning of words.

Limits, Truths

No word can have your limits for you.

There’s no candle in the window.

It’s all up to you and artificial intelligence, whatever that’s supposed to be, doesn’t help.

You

What in the world have you, of all things, got to do with words?

Well, what you can feel, hear, smell, taste, touch, or see, or if you have a word for it, or if you have another word for it, it’s a word.

For this and other reasons as well, you is also part of THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) — what you are, do, can, and have, how you respond, and what that says about you.

Philosophy

I’m a storyteller, not a philosopher, so what has philosophy, of all things, got to do with the origin of humanity?

Why?

Above marked in red, Why? is the basis of not only storytelling, but also of every philosophical pursuit.

I do read of philosophers whenever the time is right, most recently when I enrolled at the local “Journées philosophiques” earlier this year.

Among the speakers was Markus Gabriel, “a philosopher” according to Wikipedia (the world’s most-read reference work), “the thinker of the hour”, according to DIE ZEIT (over 270,000 subscribers use the digital ZEIT), and chair of epistemology and of modern- and present-day philosophy at the University of Bonn, Germany. For context only, a few of Markus Gabriel’s quotes.

  • “It would be better if man would learn to understand himself as an animal again.” 
  • “We will never know everything.”
  • “Society will always have to come to terms with man’s susceptibility to error.”
  • “We need an ethics of not knowing.”

A favorite of mine is Ludwig Wittgenstein, “considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century”, according to Wikipedia. For context only, below a few of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s quotes.

  • “All I know is what I have words for.”
  • “What a word means, a sentence cannot say.”
  • “Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.”
  • “A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.”
  • “Call it a dream, it does not change anything.”
  • “What one cannot speak of, one must remain silent about.”
  • “Death is not an event in life.”
  • “If a question can be asked, then it can also be answered.” 
  • “Everything that can be thought and said at all, can be thought and said clearly.”   
  • “To say of two things that they are identical is nonsense. And to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing.”
  • “I won’t say ‘See you tomorrow’ because that would be like predicting the future, and I’m pretty sure I can’t do that.”
  • “Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life.”

In THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT), simply look for what is useful, ignore the rest, or reach out to say hello.

Systemic change requires sharing the information.

If the information in this introduction is useful to you and maybe to others, please feel free to share it lock, stock, and barrel.

PS.

You can also listen to the book’s introduction by clicking the play button below.

PS.

You can purchase THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT) with a simple click on the picture below.

Are you making this common mistake with your identity?

By In words, you

No matter how hard you try?

The random things we do daily, they frequently happen without intent

By the time we realize that they’ve become habits, they have likely already become part of what we identify with. And before we know it, these random things have already become part of the decision how to invest your day’s time and energy.

That’s a BIG mistake. Fortunately, it is easy to prevent it from happening as soon as we add intent to these daily random habits. Because when you add intent, you give yourselves the chance to rewite and rewire your attitudes. But for a start, you first need to see it.

In your teenage years, you probably believed in the same stories typically told to teenagers all over the world, namely that it didn’t matter a Dickie bird whether a story or word genuinely happened or not, that the only thing that matters is they are believed.

The times have changed, water has gone under the bridge, but the stories and words told to teenagers all over the world, when not identical, have hardly evolved at all.

‎”Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school.” – Plato (2,500 years ago)
“When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” – Paul Simon (40 years ago)

Makes you wonder who’s teaching the teachers and the storytellers, doesn’t it?

Who are you?

Who are you? What is your identity?

According to the stories and words told at school, you should make same mistake as most everybody else and idenitify with your name, looks, religion, nationality, family, work, activities, possessions, reputation, ambition or beliefs, to name a few.

That bascically guarantees not only that your identity will get stolen, but also that you will have to change identities as time goes by.

I’m not one to make up new opinions…

You are, do, and have.

… what you ARE, what you DO, and what you HAVE, are different stories altogether.

To give yourself an everlasting identity, forget what you DO, for you do all kinds of things, and forget what you HAVE, for these things too shall pass.

For an identity that will last forever and a day, identify with what you ARE.

You ARE 70% water, and 30% fire, air, and earth. The percentages can vary slightly from birth to death, but that’s nothing to worry about.

You ARE 70% water, and 30% fire, air, and earth, the same elements that the Earth is made of!

How’s that for everlasting? Hard to beat I’d say.

But that’s not all.

Long before you even showed up, these 4 elements have invented the cells, the plants, the animals, the eyes, the brains, the words, and the word-users, our ancestors, and now you, the most recent link in the chain of evolution.

Knowing your roots is as good as having them.

Knowing you’re 70% water and 30% fire, air, and earth, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Talk about knowing, without the risk of ever forgetting.

A world of difference

Before I knew that I’m 70% water and 30% fire, air, and earth, I used to change my identity like I changed my underpants.

Now I could be LGBTQIA+, it wouldn’t make any difference, I’d still be what I am — 70% water and 30% fire, air, and earth.

The sun, the moon, and the stars change genders depending on where you are.

Yet the children get low grades at school for being confused about theirs.

It is simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius (2,400 years ago)

PS.

You may still have to look up your passport, race, or religion, but to the need to know your identity will be a thing of the past. Imagine the time and energy free for the things that matter.

Did you know why the story of words isn’t told at school?

By In history, words

So at school the teachers can continue to teach the world’s longest lasting lie in peace.

In the news today, crime is talked about in relation to forbidden hate, racism, gangs, murder, and drugs.

Whilst legal, lawful, and right are mostly talked about in relation to permitted crimes such as legal drugs, religion, sex, gangs, murder, hate, and racism.

What most word-users ignore it’s forgetting that…

“In the beginning is the word.”

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” – Rudyard Kipling

I’m not one to make up new opinions or to invent anything new.

Not in the news

What the news doesn’t tell you is why, from the stories told at school, the one missing is always the story of words. Because the people who read only one book don’t want a word of it in the news that the story of words is been banned from school because…

in the wordless world

Lie doesn’t exist for self-evident reasons.

In the wordy world

The longest lasting lie describes “In the beginning is the word, the word is with god, and the word is god.”

This has been going on for thousands of years.

For thousands of years

In the wordy world, when you tell a lie, you are the first to know, which every liar whose ever lived knows from personal experience, the only knowledge there is.

What the people telling the world’s longest lasting lie have also known for thousands of years, is that when a lie is repeated, it is believed. Including by themselves.

However, the truth will catch up with the them eventually.

But I could be wrong.

What if I told you that “1%/99%” is older than writing? (would you be surprised?)

By In history, words

1%/99% older than writing
The story of words

In the wordless world

In the wordless world, wealth and power don’t exist for self-evident reasons.

In the wordy world

In the wordy world, the fact that wealth and power are words can be denied only by confirming it.

And in the wordy world, many word-users want you to believe that 1/99 — also known as the 1% vs. the 99% — describes the unequal distribution of wealth and power among the world’s population of word-users. Not only that, you’re also to know exactly which percentage you belong to every step of the way.

Fact is, where power is, there are words, and where words are, there is power.

Power tends to organize never in the shape of a glass of water, where the volume is evenly distributed, but always in the shape of a pyramid, where the 1% sits invariably on top.

Of course, words are powerless. Expecting words to have power presupposes they have the organs required, which they don’t for self-evident reasons.

The power, if any, is in the word-user.

  • Words first showed up on Earth 13750 years ago when the age was stone, the Sahara green, Northern Europe under 1-mile-thick ice, and writing hadn’t been invented yet.
  • The powerful 1% word-users, as opposed to the 99%, understood from the beginning that the word was a new beginning.
  • They understood that stored words would later allow for storytelling, which explains the powerful have been the 1% from the start, but also why the planet’s first storytellers were the rock stars of their day.
  • For the first 8750 years, words were spoken only, but when 5000 years ago writing was invented,  the 1% possessed the wealth and power to own the ink, papyrus, paper, scribes, seals, as well as the storytellers to have their stories told all over the world.
  • The reward system of the 1% at the time — get paid in gold, land, and titles the chief said was his — made it affordable. But that is about chiefs, a different story entirely.
  • When 585 years ago the printing press was invented, it was also priced with the 1% in mind.
  • 99% of the world’s word-users couldn’t afford a printing press in their wildest dreams.
  • Everything changed 156 years ago when the typewriter was invented.
  • The typewriter transformed everybody able to afford a typewriter into a storyteller overnight. Of course, this reshuffled 1% didn’t use the typewriter for storytelling only. They also used it to create reference works such as thesauruses, encyclopedias and dictionaries.
  • The invention 33 years ago of the world-wide-web — now known as the internet and social media — as changed everything, including the 1%, again.
  • The internet gobbles up, stores, and disseminates more words faster than anything invented for that purpose before, and by doing so spelled the death of “I don’t know.”
  • The newest 1% — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, also known as Big Tech — are wealthy and powerful not because they know everything about words, but because they know everything about you.

Powerful conclusion

How the 1% treat you is their power.

But how you respond is all up to you.

PS.

The utmost a word can do is co-respond the best it can to what you’re about to say, however, make no mistake about it, the one responding will forever be you.

An often-overlooked part of humanity (and why it’s crucial to see).

By In history, words

Out of the blue, back in 2016, it suddenly saw that humanity could be a word.

Now seven years and many doubters later, the proof is in the pudding. This I know beyond the shadow of a doubt from personal experience, the only source of knowledge there is,

Humanity can be denied only by confirming it — a word.

Typical of words, including humanity, is that in the wordless world, words and humanity don’t exist for self-evident reasons, but in the wordful world, a word couldn’t be anything else if it tried, and everything you can think, feel, hear, touch, smell, taste, or see, and everything else you have a word for it, and everything you have another word for, is beyond the shadow of a doubt, a word.

Now I no longer see the point in tarting up that I’m passionate about the origin of both words and humanity. After all, the two events are identical. If it wasn’t for words, humanity wouldn’t exist.

I reside in a country where being the author of posts about the origin doesn’t get me silenced or cost me my life, and I know of course that everybody wished that all governments would love their children, too, but I also know that everybody knows the state the world is in.

Long story short, in the seven years since 2016, I’ve searched every crook and cranny for what the famous word-users have said or are saying inspirational about words, and I have collected and stored it for you to enjoy, if so inclined, in Word Quotes Worth Reading Twice.

What have words got to do with humanity?

In the beginning is the word. It’s a fact that can be denied only by confirming it.

Without words in the beginning, humanity wouldn’t exist.

So there.

What have words got to do with words?

“Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating.” – Patrick Rothfuss

“What a word means, a sentence cannot say.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

Because I agree with the above quotes 100%, I have written a book about both origins — the origin of words and the origin of humanity — the same event as far as humanity is concerned, instead.

The origin of humanity

Now available for purchase at BoD as well as at Amazon.

PS.

Understanding words is never a question of quantity. There are always those who understand and those who don’t.

But on one thing, my friend, I give you my word. When you change the way you look at words, the world changes.