SchindlersWord

the origin of humanity

history

My story

By In Beat Schindler, history

It’s possible that you don’t know me…yet.

In fact, it’s more than likely. Maybe like many LinkedIn users before, you’ve viewed my profile but would like to know more about me just the same.

Therefore, if so inclined, let me share with you my story in two parts.

Part 1: Before me/Before 2016/Before words

Part 2: After me/After 2016/After words

Before me/Before 2016/Before words

Before me, I used to do when and how I was told, grew up, traveled the world, worked for the world’s then-best company you could work for, read truckloads of books, papers, and instruction manuals, and studied with some world famous coaches so you don’t have to.

2016

On a sunny afternoon in 2016, I was jogging through my favorite forest with my eyes wide open so as not to step onto any rocks, roots, snails, pine cones, or branches, when I stumbled upon the fact that everything I have a word for is a word.

The wordless light came through the wordless leaves and the wordless trees straight from the wordless sun above, when out of the blue I clearly saw that there was nothing left between the wordless and the words. The wordless fire, air, earth, and water had turned everything wordless into words, including themselves, me, and everything else I had a word for.

I had once before not known where I was, or what is me and what is not me, which is when I was born wordless. That means this was my second experience with that same event. And it turned out I was every bit as surprised as I was the first time around.

I wished the madness would go away as fast as it had come, but many years later I still have my eyes wide open.

Be it as it may, by now it was early evening. I decided to stay in the forest for a little while longer. For the first time in my adult life, tears were now flowing freely. Not one with a habit of crying a river, I had to stop myself from happening at this crowning end of a sunny afternoon.

This was the most serene event that had ever happened to me, and I wasn’t prepared to lose it again.

The famous coaches whose books I read and seminars I attended during the 20 years before to reclaim my identity have no idea that never before or since I imagined that anyone or anything can feel like this,

They do not imagine it themselves. They couldn’t if they tried.

Experience trumps theory.

Words are a prison, but even a prison is a home if you have the key.

After me/After 2016/After words

Everything looked the same, but the world had changed. Again.

I can now be in the company of family and friends thinking 5 minutes have gone by when in fact several hours had flown out the window. I can be there with my ears and my eyes wide open, participating, but without a sense of time.

Everything within me and without me dances in this both wordless and wordy world of circumstances. With a difference, this time around I have the words to describe it.

Like most people I knew, I had never thought of me as a word before.

Communicating with myself, which is what words are also for, I ask “What if everything is a word?” or “What if everything I know is a word?” and all I get back is a constant “Maybe you’ve lost your marbles.”

I have always been happy, have no problems, and have always done what I did for nothing but the sensation while doing it. This and many other worries have never been an issue for me, and I’m not eager to make that mistake now.

Every cell that my body is made of, that is 100%, are still bursting with what I still don’t have words for as we speak, the ecstasy of 2016.

Do not the brightest moments find us without words?

Over and above the fact that I’m not the spring chicken I used to be and that I’ve experienced open heart surgery, if you see photos of me before and after 2016, you can clearly see that things have changed. As I research and write my books and articles, I’m freer than I ever was before, my own birth excepted. My voice and the shape of my face change, to name a few, as they did before, as good as new.

Post-2016, I knew I had to do something but didn’t know how.

All that mattered was that I followed my bliss anew. I knew the how would show up at the right time.

Post-2016, I trust words enough, including the uniVERSE, to find guides I expect different from what I anticipate.

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

Beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Post-2016, I use words to help myself and other word-users to reclaim their identity in turn

I know that all word-users are made as I am — of 70% water, 30% fire, air, and earth, and 100% cells. Don’t worry it the math doesn’t add up. Therefore I think that the ecstasy, serenity, and freedom that happened and continue to happen to me, can happen to any word-user willing to change the way they look at words.

I wish this willing word-user, my friend, will be you.

If you were to climb Everest, at 8,848 meters the world’s highest mountain, would you consider yourself a success after you reached the top? If it’s yes, you are only half right. Success is when you are back down in the valley again. Wouldn’t you agree?

Be it as it may, this is similar to changing the way you look at words. Nothing is believed until it’s true. I can help, but nobody else can believe it for you.

PS.

THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY is the most profound book I’ve ever published. My intention is to disarm the listener. The book breaks what people expect from me, as I don’t talk with words, but about words.

The end in mind with THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY isn’t to change the world by fighting the old, but by providing a new model that makes the old obsolete.

Takeaway

There are no passengers on this planet of ours. Every thing and every body — yes, the spaces are intended — are crew, the wordless and the wordy alike. And the only specie that doesn’t know what they’re doing is the one that you and I belong to: The word-users.

I’m not saying that’s not true.

All I’m saying is do with what you are, with what you have, with where you are, and with what you know and ignore, to make the world a better place — the best place it can be for yourself, for your family, for your friends, and for the wordless, too — now.

I hope my story now told may inspire you every step of your way.

My story

It’s possible that you don’t know me…yet.

In fact, it’s more than likely. Maybe like many LinkedIn users before, you’ve viewed my profile but would like to know more about me just the same.

Therefore, if so inclined, let me share with you my story in two parts.

Part 1: Before me/Before 2016/Before words

Part 2: After me/After 2016/After words

Before me/Before 2016/Before words

Before me, I used to do when and how I was told, grew up, traveled the world, worked for the world’s then-best company you could work for, read truckloads of books, papers, and instruction manuals, and studied with some world famous coaches so you don’t have to.

2016

On a sunny afternoon in 2016, I was jogging through my favorite forest with my eyes wide open so as not to step onto any rocks, roots, snails, pine cones, or branches, when I stumbled upon the fact that everything I have a word for is a word.

The wordless light came through the wordless leaves and the wordless trees straight from the wordless sun above, when out of the blue I clearly saw that there was nothing left between the wordless and the words. The wordless fire, air, earth, and water had turned everything wordless into words, including themselves, me, and everything else I had a word for.

I had once before not known where I was, or what is me and what is not me, which is when I was born wordless. That means this was my second experience with that same event. And it turned out I was every bit as surprised as I was the first time around.

I wished the madness would go away as fast as it had come, but many years later I still have my eyes wide open.

Be it as it may, by now it was early evening. I decided to stay in the forest for a little while longer.

For the first time in my adult life, tears were now flowing freely. Not one with a habit of crying a river, I had to stop myself from it happening at the crowning end of this fab run on a sunny afternoon.

This was the most serene event that had ever happened to me, and I wasn’t prepared to lose it again.

The famous coaches whose books I read and seminars I attended during the 20 years before to reclaim my identity have no idea that never before or since have I imagined that anyone or anything can be this free.

Nothing I was lucky enough to experience pre-2016, and nothing the self-help book authors and my ex-coaches offer, often the same, even comes close.

No other word-user in the world could imagine my freedom if they tried, because of a reason I didn’t make up.

Experience trumps theory.

Words are a prison, but even a prison is a home if you have the key, and that key is now in “THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY” for everybody to see.

After me/After 2016/After words

Everything looked the same, but the world had changed. Again.

I can now be in the company of family and friends thinking 5 minutes have gone by when in fact several hours had flown out the window. I can be there with my ears and my eyes wide open, participating, but without a sense of time.

Everything within me and without me dances in this both wordless and wordy world of circumstances. With a difference, this time around I have the words to describe it.

Like most people I knew, I had never thought of me as a word before.

Communicating with myself, which is what words are also for, I ask “What if everything is a word?” or “What if everything I know is a word?” and all I get back is a constant “Maybe you’ve lost your marbles.”

I have always been happy, have no problems, and have always done what I did for nothing but the sensation while doing it. This and many other worries have never been an issue for me, and I’m not eager to make that mistake now.

Every cell that my body is made of, that is 100%, are still bursting with what I still don’t have words for as we speak, the ecstasy of 2016.

Do not the brightest moments find us without words?

Over and above the fact that I’m not the spring chicken I used to be and that I’ve experienced open heart surgery, if you see photos of me before and after 2016, you can clearly see that things have changed. As I research and write my books and articles, I’m freer than I ever was before, my own birth excepted. My voice and the shape of my face change, to name a few, as they did before, as good as new.

Post-2016, I knew I had to do something but didn’t know how.

All that mattered was that I followed my bliss anew. I knew the how would show up at the right time.

Post-2016, I trust words enough, including the uniVERSE, to find guides that will be different from what I anticipate.

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

Beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Post-2016, I use words to help myself and other word-users to reclaim their identity in turn

I know that all word-users are made as I am — of 70% water, 30% fire, air, and earth, and 100% cells. Don’t worry it the math doesn’t add up. Therefore I think that the ecstasy, serenity, and freedom that happened and continue to happen to me, can happen to any word-user willing to change the way they look at words.

I wish this willing word-user, my friend, will be you.

If you were to climb Everest, at 8,848 meters the world’s highest mountain, would you consider yourself a success after you reached the top? If it’s yes, you are only half right. Success is when you are back down in the valley again. Wouldn’t you agree?

Be it as it may, this is similar to changing the way you look at words. Nothing is believed until it’s true. I can help, but nobody else can believe it for you.

PS.

THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY is the most profound book I’ve ever published. My intention is to disarm the listener. The book breaks what people expect from me, as I don’t talk with words, but about words.

The end in mind with THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY isn’t to change the world by fighting the old, but by providing a new model that makes the old obsolete.

Takeaway

There are no passengers on this planet of ours. Every thing and every body — yes, the spaces are intended — are crew, the wordless and the wordy alike. And the only specie that doesn’t know what they’re doing is the one that you and I belong to: The word-users.

I’m not saying that’s not true.

All I’m saying is do with what you are, with what you have, with where you are, and with what you know and ignore, to make the world a better place — the best place it can be for yourself, for your family, for your friends, and for the wordless, too — now.

I hope my story now told may inspire you every step of your way.

This 13,750-year-old sales trick still works today

By In history, words, you

A 13,750-year-old sales trick continues to work as we speak, so you might of course want to know what it is and what we’re talking about.

Well, first things first, a trick is intended to deceive.

As you’d expect from a trick that has deceived without fail for the past 13,750 years — which is when the words got invented — is that it must have deceived as many word-users back when the age was stone, the Sahara green, and Northern Europe was under 1-mile-thick ice, as it continues to deceive now, 13,750 years later.

If you think that’s the 13,750-year-old sales trick this post is about, you’re spot on.

It’s as if time has left no trace on the workings of this nearly 14,000-year-old sales trick.

Sales implies that the trick is based on words. Needless to say, but for the purpose of this post I say it anyway, sales is a word, and so is trick.

In the wordless world, sales and trick don’t exist for obvious reasons. But in the wordy world, everything is different.

In case you haven’t read all my articles published since July 10, 2023, let me remind you that there exist two types of citizens on planet Earth, the word-masters and the word-users.

The word-masters are word-users that have known in the beginning is the word since the beginning of words.

The word-users do as told by the word-masters.

There’s nothing new about the word-masters, the minority, and the word-users, the majority. On the contrary, the relationship between masters and users has remained unchanged for thousands of years, and now is no different.

All of us

The word-masters and the word-users alike, that is all of us, know from personal experience that we depend on context and contrast to stay alive.

Should we lose our ability to be in charge of our own context and contrast, that means we simply surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from it. When this happens, you’ll be in trouble in the blink of an eye or by the end of the day, whichever comes first.

This we’ve known long before Maslow wrote it down for everybody to see, because, let’s face it, we’re all animals with words — though we love to pretend otherwise — so we know what we know with or without words learned at school.

After all, the 100% cells that we’re made of are wordless, too, and each cell knows much more than we’ll ever know.

The setup can be rigged

If you’re not in charge of your own context and contrast, then somebody else will be more than happy to take charge for you.

That somebody will likely be evil word-masters bent on taking advantage of this natural survival skill by rigging the setup in their favor.

When you surrender your senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from it, you have no rights left, and you don’t compare as you had initially intended, apples to apples, but you now end up comparing apples to oranges, or you can even be manipulated to believe an apple is an orange.

There are many ways to do this.

Takeaway

The challenge is knowing who is in control of the context and the contrast.

Make sure it’s you.

You can’t win with a losing hand.

The step-by-step guide to why the story of words isn’t told

By In history, words, you

Step 1

As you’d expect, your lesson begins with the first step.

Step number one is knowing that the word-masters have known in the beginning is the word since the beginning.

You don’t need to be a word-master to know what that means.

But you must know how it all began.

It all began with the invention of words, hence the saying “In the beginning is the word”.

Unless you’ve lived in a cave on a distant planet until today, I think you’ve likely heard about or seen in the beginning is the word in writing.

Before Words

Above marked in red, nothing that you now have a word for exists in the wordless world Before Words.

After Words

Equally marked in red, everything you now have a word for exists in the wordy world After Words because in the beginning is the word.

That’s how humanity and everything you have a word for began.

A word couldn’t be anything else if it tried, including you.

  • “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

Therefore, without further ado, let’s move on to step 2.

Step 2

The story of words isn’t told because of Step 1.

If the story of words were told, it would be the death of the world’s longest-lasting lies.

  • “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” – Word-masters

In the beginning is the word.

God is no exception.

It couldn’t be anything else if it tried.

  • “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” – Word-masters

Words were invented 13,750 years ago.
Writing was invented 5,000 years ago.
Nobody knows what word was spoken in the 8,750 years between the invention of words and the invention of writing.
We know that during the word’s first 8,750 years, they were spoken only, meaning from whence the words had come, tither they returned again.
We don’t know where that was or could have been.

Step 3

If the story of words were told, it’d be the end of the organizations built on the world’s most successful lies.

They couldn’t continue to tell them in peace.

Imagine that.

Step 4

Now you know why the story of words isn’t told.

“‎Strange times are these in when old and young are taught falsehoods in school.” – Plato

PS.

Whether a lie happened or not doesn’t matter. All that matters it’s believed.

Do you want a fresh perspective but don’t know how?

By In history, words, you

Why is it hard to gain a fresh perspective?

I think it has got to do — are you ready for this? — with professional golf teachers.

I’m told the hardest part for a professional golf teacher isn’t helping adult golfers develop a picture-book swing. The hardest part is getting adult golfers to stop using a bad one.

The same is true for professional word teachers.

The hardest part isn’t helping adult word-users gain a fresh perspective. The hardest part for a professional word teacher is getting adult word-users to change how to look at words.

Change how you look at words

When word-users change how they look at words, their worlds change.

You can bet your life on it.

Talk about a fresh perspective.

Nothing is believed until it’s true

Part of a fresh perspective is seeing, maybe for the first time, that the invention of words divided the word-users’ world into the wordless and the wordy.

Maybe also for the first time, it is seeing that the words and the word-users follow what preceded them since the birth of the planet 4.65 billion years ago, including the inventions of the eyes and the brains half a billion years before the invention of words.

Put differently, there’s no question about it, the words and word-users are part and parcel of evolution.

Without words (in the wordless world), there is no evolution.

Certainly for the first time, the final part of a fresh perspective is seeing that “Animal with words” appears under both the “WORDLESS” and the “WORDY” worlds at the same time.

That’s due to the fact that words don’t matter.

In that way, words defy our understanding of how evolution works.

Wordless

As depicted above, the wordless include not only the fire, air, earth, and water, but also everything invented by those 4 in the 4.65 billion years since they created the Earth.

In other words, the wordless include what the word-users name nature.

“To see, we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.” – Claude Monet

Wordy

The wordy include the word-users, that is the animals with words (you and me), and the machines.

Machines excepted

Every word-user is unique like everybody else.

Therefore, it goes without saying but for the purpose of a fresh perspective I say it anyway, each word-user has their own truth(s).

In other words, to each their own.

The machines are excepted because everybody knows that the machines operate on programs and that the difference, if any, is not in the programmed machines, but in who is using them.

If it were different, all word-users would change how they look at words at the same time, all their worlds would change in the blink of an eye, and we’d gain the first fresh perspective since the beginning of words before the end of the day.

And here’s how to make this wishful thinking come true:

Don’t think twice in the beginning is the word.

Just think it once and for all instead.

Done.

Takeaway

If you ever want a fresh perspective again, but don’t know how, it’s simple to do.

Change how you look at words.

“Why are words not what my smartphone says?” is the question that I often get asked

By In history, words

Word-users ask strange questions

The strange question I often get asked is “Why is the word not what my smart phone says?”

In a world of complicated — an English-pronounced Latin word — simple is like one hand clapping, hard to be heard, or if you prefer, like a bird without feathers, hard to take to the sky.

Word and words are good cases in point.

Simple is a word that couldn’t be anything else if it tried. Naturally, so is complicated.

The difference between the two is that simple is work while complicated happens.

There are many ways to simple.

You can read simple quotes worth reading twice.

And there’s “Last Train to Simple (the crazy method to love life)”.

“Why are words not what my smart phone says?”

Long story short, there are two answers, simple and complicated.

The simple answer: Because your smartphone depends on the internet.

For the complicated: Ask the internet.

Actually, you don’t have to. I’ve done the hard work for you.

  • Wikipedia “the internet’s most-read reference work”
    “Internet: is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the world wide web (www), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing (followed by another 11,000 words)”.
  • Dictionary “the internet’s leading online dictionary”
    “Internet: Usually (except when used before a noun), a vast computer network linking smaller computer networks worldwide. The internet includes commercial, educational, governmental, and other networks, all of which use the same set of communications protocols.
  • BrainyQuote “providing inspirational quotes since 2001 to our worldwide community”
    “Internet”: If so inclined, check it out for yourself at https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results?x=27&y=12&q=Internet

The internet

“Gobbles up, stores, and disseminates more words faster than anything invented for that purpose before.” – Beat Schindler

“Why are words not what my smart phone says?” Part 2

Because all the internet knows about words is what it’s been told by the internet’s inventors who learned about words at school.

What’s wrong with that is that school doesn’t teach words and doesn’t tell the story of words. “School doesn’t teach” means school doesn’t teach words — what words are, what words do, and what words have — but that’s about school, a different story entirely…

  • “‎Strange times are these in when old and young are taught falsehoods in school.” – Plato
  • “The school system is the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing.” – Marshall McLuhan
  • “If you end up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some talking head on television to do your shit, then you deserve it.” – Frank Zappa
  • “When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” – Paul Simon

…that will be covered in separate post down the line.

Back to smart.

“Why are words not what my smart phone says?” Part 3

Since the invention of the internet, things have changed.

Water has gone under the bridge and other stuff too.

The mothers and fathers of the internet are dead or old now.

They’ve been replaced by 6-year-olds, or by adults impersonating 6-year-olds, that are now telling the internet what they’ve learned at schools and universities about words.

If you want to know what that is, you’ll find it at the end of this post.

“Why are words not what my smart phone says?” Part 4

Because words — what words are, what words do, and what words have — are explained in The Origin of Humanity.

Of course, you’ll find The Origin of Humanity on the internet, here, at Amazon, and wherever worthy books are sold, but that’s not enough.

To understand words, and the origin of humanity, you must read it.

The Origin of Humanity is radically different from what your smartphone says. It might shock or offend for other reasons as well.

If the above reminds you of René Magritte’s painting “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”, there is nothing I can do about it except confirm that’s how the cards are dealt.

That’s what smart is all about.

In broad brush strokes

  • “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
  • The appearance of words has revolutionized evolution.
  • Words are a prison, but even a prison is a home if you have the key.
  • The word-user was the word’s idea for getting more words.
  • Words are a gift we’re meant to keep.
  • Words are what the word-users respond to.
  • Words are how you aim at what you’re looking for.
  • Everything you know is a word.
  • Words do not only change everything you have a word for, they create it.
  • Words don’t describe the world, they describe how we see it.
  • Words have not only changed what we see, but how we see.
  • Words are the limits of your world. Once you see that, you’re limitless.
  • Words aren’t taught at school.
  • The story of words isn’t told. (Except here)
  • Word-masters have know in the beginning is the word since the beginning of words.
  • Words tend to get mistaken for evidence and often get treated that way.
  • The word-users love to use their words.
  • If you have a word for it, it’s a word.
  • Words can be denied only by confirming them.
  • If you ignore what words can do to you, then you can have no empathy for what words can do to others.
  • Words do not matter (they possess zero electric charge).
  • Words have no meaning.

Takeaway

There is more to it, but knowing words — what words are, do, and have — takes time.

Then it takes additional time to know you — what you are, what you do, and what you have.

All I can say is let yourself be surprised.

Better yet, surprise yourself.

“Surprise is the essence of humor, and nothing is more surprising than truth.” – Bill Watterson

The surprise will be worth it in the end because these two — word and you — are all it takes for the limits of your world to metamorphose into limitless opportunities forever and a day.

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PS. What the internet knows about word and words

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

“A word is a speech sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or a combination of morphemes.”

Wikipedia (the world’s most read reference work)

“A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its definition and numerous attempts to find specific criteria of the concept remain controversial. Different standards have been proposed, depending on the theoretical background and descriptive context; these do not converge on a single definition. Some specific definitions of the term “word” are employed to convey its different meanings at different levels of description, for example based on phonological, grammatical or orthographic basis. Others suggest that the concept is simply a convention used in everyday situations. The concept of “word” is distinguished from that of a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of language that has a meaning, even if it cannot stand on its own. Words are made out of at least one morpheme. Morphemes can also be joined to create other words in a process of morphological derivation. In English and many other languages, the morphemes that make up a word generally include at least one root (such as “rock”, “god”, “type”, “writ”, “can”, “not”) and possibly some affixes (“-s”, “un-“, “-ly”, “-ness”). Words with more than one root (“[type][writ]er”, “[cow][boy]s”, “[tele][graph]ically”) are called compound words. In turn, words are combined to form other elements of language, such as phrases (“a red rock”, “put up with”), clauses (“I threw a rock”), and sentences (“I threw a rock, but missed”). In many languages, the notion of what constitutes a “word” may be learned as part of learning the writing system. This is the case for the English language, and for most languages that are written with alphabets derived from the ancient Latin or Greek alphabets. In English orthography, the letter sequences “rock”, “god”, “write”, “with”, “the”, and “not” are considered to be single-morpheme words, whereas “rocks”, “ungodliness”, “typewriter”, and “cannot” are words composed of two or more morphemes (“rock”+”s”, “un”+”god”+”li”+”ness”, “type”+”writ”+”er”, and “can”+”not”).

ComputerHope

“Word may refer to any of the following: 1. When referring to a word processor, Word is short for Microsoft Word. 2. In general, a word is a single element of verbal communication with a unique meaning or use. For example, this sentence contains seven words. The English language contains several hundred thousand different words and Computer Hope lists over 15,000 computer-related words in its computer dictionary. Word classes or parts of speech are categories of English words that help you construct good sentences. These categories are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, determiner, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. In computing, a word is a single unit of measurement that is assumed to be a 16-bits in length value. However, it can be any set value, common word size values included: 16, 18, 24, 32, 36, 40, 48, and 64.”

Merriam-Webster

Click on Word Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster to see if you can believe Merriam-Webster’s take on words.

Merriam-Webster also wants you to believe that “a real word is when the word word has a wide range of meanings and uses in English. Yet one of the most often looked for pieces of information regarding word is not something that would be found in its definition. Instead, it is some variant of the question, What makes a word a real word? One of the most prolific areas of change and variation in English is vocabulary; new words are constantly being coined to name or describe new inventions or innovations, or to better identify aspects of our rapidly changing world. Constraints of time, money, and staff would make it impossible for any dictionary, no matter how large, to capture a fully comprehensive account of all the words in the language. And even if such a leviathan reference was somehow fashioned, the dictionary would be obsolete the instant it was published as speakers and writers continued generating new terms to meet their constantly changing needs. Most general English dictionaries are designed to include only those words that meet certain criteria of usage across wide areas and over extended periods of time (for more details about how words are chosen for dictionary entry, read “How does a word get into a Merriam-Webster dictionary?” in our FAQ). As a result, they may omit words that are still in the process of becoming established, those that are too highly specialized, or those that are so informal that they are rarely documented in professionally edited writing. But the words left out are as real as those that gain entry; the former simply haven’t met the criteria for dictionary entry–at least not yet (newer ones may ultimately gain admission to the dictionary’s pages if they gain sufficient use). However, in preparing your own writings, it is worth remembering that the dictionary encompasses the most widely used terms in English. Words that are left out may have usage limited to specific, isolated, or informal contexts, so they should be used carefully.

Oxford Learners

“Word is a single unit of language that means something and can be spoken or written.”

“Why are words not what my smartphone says?” is the question that I often get asked

Word-users ask strange questions

The strange question I often get asked is “Why is the word not what my smart phone says?”

In a world of complicated — an English-pronounced Latin word — simple is like one hand clapping, hard to be heard, or if you prefer, like a bird without feathers, hard to take to the sky.

Word and words are good cases in point.

Simple is a word that couldn’t be anything else if it tried. Naturally, so is complicated.

The difference between the two is that simple is work while complicated happens.

There are many ways to simple.

You can read simple quotes worth reading twice.

And there’s “Last Train to Simple (the crazy method to love life)”.

“Why are words not what my smart phone says?”

Long story short, there are two answers, simple and complicated.

The simple answer: Because your smartphone depends on the internet.

For the complicated: Ask the internet.

Actually, you don’t have to. I’ve done the hard work for you.

  • Wikipedia “the internet’s most-read reference work”
    “Internet: is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the world wide web (www), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing (followed by another 11,000 words)”.
  • Dictionary “the internet’s leading online dictionary”
    “Internet: Usually (except when used before a noun), a vast computer network linking smaller computer networks worldwide. The internet includes commercial, educational, governmental, and other networks, all of which use the same set of communications protocols.
  • BrainyQuote “providing inspirational quotes since 2001 to our worldwide community”
    “Internet”: If so inclined, check it out for yourself at https://www.brainyquote.com/search_results?x=27&y=12&q=Internet

The internet

“Gobbles up, stores, and disseminates more words faster than anything invented for that purpose before.” – Beat Schindler

“Why are words not what my smart phone says?” Part 2

Because all the internet knows about words is what it’s been told by the internet’s inventors who learned about words at school.

What’s wrong with that is that school doesn’t teach words and doesn’t tell the story of words. “School doesn’t teach” means school doesn’t teach words — what words are, what words do, and what words have — but that’s about school, a different story entirely…

  • “‎Strange times are these in when old and young are taught falsehoods in school.” – Plato
  • “The school system is the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing.” – Marshall McLuhan
  • “If you end up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some talking head on television to do your shit, then you deserve it.” – Frank Zappa
  • “When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” – Paul Simon

…that will be covered in separate post down the line.

Back to smart.

“Why are words not what my smart phone says?” Part 3

Since the invention of the internet, things have changed.

Water has gone under the bridge and other stuff too.

The mothers and fathers of the internet are dead or old now.

They’ve been replaced by 6-year-olds, or by adults impersonating 6-year-olds, that are now telling the internet what they’ve learned at schools and universities about words.

If you want to know what that is, you’ll find it at the end of this post.

“Why are words not what my smart phone says?” Part 4

Because words — what words are, what words do, and what words have — are explained in The Origin of Humanity.

Of course, you’ll find The Origin of Humanity on the internet, here, at Amazon, and wherever worthy books are sold, but that’s not enough.

To understand words, and the origin of humanity, you must read it.

The Origin of Humanity is radically different from what your smartphone says. It might shock or offend for other reasons as well.

If the above reminds you of René Magritte’s painting “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”, there is nothing I can do about it except confirm that’s how the cards are dealt.

That’s what smart is all about.

In broad brush strokes

  • “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
  • The appearance of words has revolutionized evolution.
  • Words are a prison, but even a prison is a home if you have the key.
  • The word-user was the word’s idea for getting more words.
  • Words are a gift we’re meant to keep.
  • Words are what the word-users respond to.
  • Words are how you aim at what you’re looking for.
  • Everything you know is a word.
  • Words do not only change everything you have a word for, they create it.
  • Words don’t describe the world, they describe how we see it.
  • Words have not only changed what we see, but how we see.
  • Words are the limits of your world. Once you see that, you’re limitless.
  • Words aren’t taught at school.
  • The story of words isn’t told. (Except here)
  • Word-masters have know in the beginning is the word since the beginning of words.
  • Words tend to get mistaken for evidence and often get treated that way.
  • The word-users love to use their words.
  • If you have a word for it, it’s a word.
  • Words can be denied only by confirming them.
  • If you ignore what words can do to you, then you can have no empathy for what words can do to others.
  • Words do not matter (they possess zero electric charge).
  • Words have no meaning.

Takeaway

There is more to it, but knowing words — what words are, do, and have — takes time.

Then it takes additional time to know you — what you are, what you do, and what you have.

All I can say is let yourself be surprised.

Better yet, surprise yourself.

“Surprise is the essence of humor, and nothing is more surprising than truth.” – Bill Watterson

The surprise will be worth it in the end because these two — word and you — are all it takes for the limits of your world to metamorphose into limitless opportunities forever and a day.

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PS. What the internet knows about word and words

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

“A word is a speech sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or a combination of morphemes.”

Wikipedia (the world’s most read reference work)

“A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its definition and numerous attempts to find specific criteria of the concept remain controversial. Different standards have been proposed, depending on the theoretical background and descriptive context; these do not converge on a single definition. Some specific definitions of the term “word” are employed to convey its different meanings at different levels of description, for example based on phonological, grammatical or orthographic basis. Others suggest that the concept is simply a convention used in everyday situations. The concept of “word” is distinguished from that of a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of language that has a meaning, even if it cannot stand on its own. Words are made out of at least one morpheme. Morphemes can also be joined to create other words in a process of morphological derivation. In English and many other languages, the morphemes that make up a word generally include at least one root (such as “rock”, “god”, “type”, “writ”, “can”, “not”) and possibly some affixes (“-s”, “un-“, “-ly”, “-ness”). Words with more than one root (“[type][writ]er”, “[cow][boy]s”, “[tele][graph]ically”) are called compound words. In turn, words are combined to form other elements of language, such as phrases (“a red rock”, “put up with”), clauses (“I threw a rock”), and sentences (“I threw a rock, but missed”). In many languages, the notion of what constitutes a “word” may be learned as part of learning the writing system. This is the case for the English language, and for most languages that are written with alphabets derived from the ancient Latin or Greek alphabets. In English orthography, the letter sequences “rock”, “god”, “write”, “with”, “the”, and “not” are considered to be single-morpheme words, whereas “rocks”, “ungodliness”, “typewriter”, and “cannot” are words composed of two or more morphemes (“rock”+”s”, “un”+”god”+”li”+”ness”, “type”+”writ”+”er”, and “can”+”not”).

ComputerHope

“Word may refer to any of the following: 1. When referring to a word processor, Word is short for Microsoft Word. 2. In general, a word is a single element of verbal communication with a unique meaning or use. For example, this sentence contains seven words. The English language contains several hundred thousand different words and Computer Hope lists over 15,000 computer-related words in its computer dictionary. Word classes or parts of speech are categories of English words that help you construct good sentences. These categories are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, determiner, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. In computing, a word is a single unit of measurement that is assumed to be a 16-bits in length value. However, it can be any set value, common word size values included: 16, 18, 24, 32, 36, 40, 48, and 64.”

Merriam-Webster

Click on Word Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster to see if you can believe Merriam-Webster’s take on words.

Merriam-Webster also wants you to believe that “a real word is when the word word has a wide range of meanings and uses in English. Yet one of the most often looked for pieces of information regarding word is not something that would be found in its definition. Instead, it is some variant of the question, What makes a word a real word? One of the most prolific areas of change and variation in English is vocabulary; new words are constantly being coined to name or describe new inventions or innovations, or to better identify aspects of our rapidly changing world. Constraints of time, money, and staff would make it impossible for any dictionary, no matter how large, to capture a fully comprehensive account of all the words in the language. And even if such a leviathan reference was somehow fashioned, the dictionary would be obsolete the instant it was published as speakers and writers continued generating new terms to meet their constantly changing needs. Most general English dictionaries are designed to include only those words that meet certain criteria of usage across wide areas and over extended periods of time (for more details about how words are chosen for dictionary entry, read “How does a word get into a Merriam-Webster dictionary?” in our FAQ). As a result, they may omit words that are still in the process of becoming established, those that are too highly specialized, or those that are so informal that they are rarely documented in professionally edited writing. But the words left out are as real as those that gain entry; the former simply haven’t met the criteria for dictionary entry–at least not yet (newer ones may ultimately gain admission to the dictionary’s pages if they gain sufficient use). However, in preparing your own writings, it is worth remembering that the dictionary encompasses the most widely used terms in English. Words that are left out may have usage limited to specific, isolated, or informal contexts, so they should be used carefully.

Oxford Learners

“Word is a single unit of language that means something and can be spoken or written.”

1 way I increased my knowledge by 1000% and so can you:

By In history, you

If the above could talk, what would they tell us?

We’ll never know because they won’t.

That’s the 1 (one) way I increased my knowledge by 1000%.

Let me share with you how it came about, so you can do it too.

Words

Words do not describe the world.

They describe how we see it.

To know what I’m talking about. For just a minute:

Imagine traveling by train at your own chosen speed.

The landscapes don’t unfold.

They don’t need to because they’ve been there all along.

But you discover them and you give them words.

As the train departs slowly, you realize, slowly at first, that in the beginning is the word.

That’s when you realize the unfolding is you, that’s how beliefs are formed, but also that it’s safe to relax for it’s only a train of thought.

“To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.” – Claude Monet

Call it a dream, it doesn’t change anything.

Increase your knowledge by 1000% too

Because you’ve imagined traveling by train at your own chosen speed, you’re halfway there already.

For the rest of the journey, I’ll teach you about words — the whole shebang, what words are, what words do, what words have, and what you are, what you do, and what you have — which is all it takes, words and you, for the limits of your world to morph into limitless opportunities forever and a day.

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If you’ve been told that in the beginning is 0, you’ve been SHAMMED

By In history, you

I’m not kidding.

Nor am I one to make a new opinion:

If you’ve been told in the beginning is 0 (zero), you’ve been SHAMMED.

In case you wonder what’s the opposite of SHAMMED, well, it’s genuine.

If you’re interested in genuine, and in how you and your family and friends have been shammed for the past 2023 years with no end in sight, then read on.

In the beginning

As you can see in broad daylight, I’m not one to make up new opinions.

There are no two ways about it.

In the beginning is the word

That includes the beginning of SHAMMED, which is a word — hence couldn’t be anything else if it tried — or we wouldn’t be here talking about you, shammed and genuine.

In the wordless world

In the wordless world, everything you have a word for doesn’t exist for self-evident reasons.

Whether that’s told, SHAMMED, or genuine doesn’t make a difference.

If you have a word for it, it’s a word.

Of that you can be sure: You can bet your life on it.

Call it a dream, it doesn’t make any difference.

In the wordy world

In the wordy world, at the risk of repeating myself…

  • In the beginning is the word.
  • In the beginning of every word is the word.
  • If you have a word for it, it’s a word.

In broad brush strokes

  • “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
  • “Call it a dream, it doesn’t change anything.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • The appearance of words revolutionized evolution.
  • Words are a prison, but even a prison is a home if you have the key.
  • The word-user was the word’s idea for getting more words.
  • Words are a gift we’re meant to keep.
  • Words are what the word-users respond to.
  • Words are how you aim at what you’re looking for.
  • Everything you know is a word.
  • Words do not only change everything you have a word for, they create it.
  • Words don’t describe the world, they describe how we see it.
  • Words have not only changed what we see, but how we see.
  • Words are the limits of your world. Once you see that, you’re limitless.
  • Words aren’t taught at school.
  • The story of words isn’t told.*
  • Word-masters have know in the beginning is the word since the beginning of words.
  • Words tend to get mistaken for evidence and often get treated that way.
  • The word-users love to use their words.
  • If you have a word for it, it’s a word.
  • Words can be denied only by confirming them.
  • If you ignore what words can do to you, then you can have no empathy for what words can do to others.
  • Words do not matter (they possess zero electric charge).
  • Words have no meaning.

*Except here

Takeaway

There is more to it, but knowing words — what words are, do, and have — takes time.

Then it takes yet more time to know you — the most important word in the alphabet — what you are, what you do, and what you have.

Let yourself be surprised. Even better, surprise yourself.

Surprise is the essence of humor, and nothing is more surprising than truth.” – Bill Watterson

The surprise will be worth the time invested in the end because those two, word and you, are all it takes for the limits of your world to morph into limitless opportunities forever and a day.

Call to action

Join my waitlist to ensure you’ll be the first to be notified when my “Limitless Opportunities” course starts later this year when the harvest moon rises anew, give or take a few.

What to think of “the 1% versus the 99%” much talked about (and chances are it’s not what you think it is)

By In history, you

Or rather what not to think.

Because if you think the “1% versus 99%” much talked about these days to divide us, is new, you’re mistaken.

“The 1% versus the 99%” is as old as words.

To know how old words are, try imagining the time between the birth of Earth and the year 2023 in terms of 100%, instead of in years.

It might take a minute or two, to talk from experience, because the time between the two is 4.65 billion years.

Alright?

Now add to the 4.65 billion years the fact words appeared 13,750 years ago.

Then you realize that the first 99.9997% of Earth-time was not only wordless, but that it continues wordless infinitely.

Put differently, if the 4.65 billion years were a 24-hour day, words would have appeared a mere 3/1000th of an Earth-time second before midnight, that is 3/1000th of an Earth-time second before the dawn of the new day we’re in.

To put that into context, 3/1000th of an Earth-time second before midnight, the age was stone, the Sahara green, Northern Europe under 1-mile-thick ice, and writing hadn’t been invented yet.

The story of words and of the inventions that preceded it

The story of words and the inventions that preceded it.
  • “In the beginning is the word.” – Word-masters
  • “There is magic in every beginning.” – Hermann Hesse

The invention of brains was magic.

500,000 years later, many among us agree the brain is magic, is usually how it works.

However, nearly the same number of word-users do NOT believe this same magic equally applies to the beginning of words invented 486,250 years after the brain, 13,750 years ago exactly.

This is a surprise because Hermann Hesse, albeit much later, wrote there is magic in every beginning, so every word-user can clearly see.

In the wordless world

In the wordless world, everything you have a word for doesn’t exist for self-evident reasons.

Whether that’s beginning, brain, or word doesn’t matter. After all, if you have a word for it, it’s a word.

You can bank on it.

Call it a dream, it doesn’t make any difference.

In the wordy world

In the wordy world of word-users, the early word-masters — the 1% — were the first to understand the magic of words, while the 99% — the early word-users — tended to mistake their master’s magic for evidence and treat it as such.

The same happens of course today with stories, but expecting words and stories to possess magic presupposes that the two have the organs required, which works for the 99%, but the word-masters are not eager to make that mistake.

Fact is, if the word-masters couldn’t tell a word from an organ, we wouldn’t be here today.

What difference has 13,750 years made?

The 1% are still the word-masters, and the word-users are still the other 99%.

Nothing has changed, except of course the word-masters’ names. Read on.

A brief story of word-mastery

  • 13750 years ago
    When words were new, fewer than 1% of the world’s nascent word-user population, the word-masters, could read and write. The word-masters were the world’s original version of us versus them, of the 1% that could read and write, versus the 99% that couldn’t. It follows that the 1% of word-masters were the first to realize that in the beginning of every word is the word.
  • 5,000 years ago
    When writing was invented, the word-masters owned everything it took — the ink, the papyrus, the paper, the scribes, and the storytellers — to have their stories told in faraway places. The reward system at the time — gold and land the word-master said was his — made it affordable. But that is about gold, a different story entirely.
  • 585 years ago
    When Gutenberg invented the printing press, still only fewer than 8% of Europe’s word-users could read (of which even fewer could write). It follows that the printing press was originally priced with the 1% — those who could read and write — in mind. For the word-users who needed to be told —the 99% — a printing press was out of reach.
  • 156 years ago
    With the invention of the typewriter, everything changed because the typewriter transformed every word-user into a storyteller. Of course, the typewriters weren’t used just for storytelling, but also for the production of reference works such as encyclopedias, thesauruses, and dictionaries.
  • 34 years ago
    Everything changed, again, when the world wide web also known as the internet was invented. The world wide web gobbles up, stores, and disseminates more words faster than anything invented for that purpose before. And because Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft — also known as Big Tech — realized this first, they are now the new word-masters, the new 1%, not because they have words, but because they have words about you.

Takeaway

All the truths add up to one big lie.

The author of The Origin of Humanity, I could be wrong.

However, of this you can be sure:

How the word-masters treat you is their power.

But how you respond is all up to you.

No other word-user can do it for you.

Do you think you can cope with 155 billion if only you’d live long enough?

By In history, words

If given a chance, could you cope with 155 billion traffic signs, or with 155 billion musical notes, or with 155 billion beliefs, or with 155 billion smells, sights, colours, truths, thoughts, snowflakes, avalanches, or dollars, to name a few?

If you don’t expect to cope with 155 billion of anything, even if you lived long enough, then what makes you think you can cope with 155 billion English words? (Forget about the world’s other words for now.)

To understand 155 billion words, I think it’s best if you can convince yourself to pay the bulk of your attention to the story of words below for a minute or two.

Feel free to change the YEARS AGO depicted above. After all, that’s what words are for.

Depicted in the story of words is evidence of the fact that our planet has survived wordless during the first 4.65 billion years since its birth, but also that it remains wordless today.

Sure, having appeared 13,750 years ago, the words exist beyond the shadow of a doubt, but with less matter than the neutrino, the ghost particle, it so happens that words cannot be detected inside of a word-user by even the world’s most sensitive detector in existence, the LUX-Zeplin, in South Dakota, USA.

That’s just one of the reasons the appearance of the word has revolutionized evolution.

But that’s about evolution, a different story altogether (which will be addressed in a future post soon).

Back to the word.

The word defies our understanding of how the universe works, except that our ancestors named it (uni)verse for a reason.

Word number one

Back 13,750 years ago — the age was stone, the Sahara green, Northern Europe under 1-mile-thick ice, and writing hadn’t been invented yet — when the first word was spoken, the number of words was 1 (one) by definition.

We shall never know what that first word was because the animal that spoke it has long been extinct, the witnesses are gone, and 13,750 years is a long time by most word-user standards.

We assume what spoke the first word was probably an animal, rather than a plant, that resembled us today. However, we don’t know which animal that might have been.

For all we know, they might have been different animals on different continents thousands of years apart, for the simple reason that words didn’t appear everywhere on Earth at the same time.

We also don’t know what the 1st word was, what said it to what, and what the one who heard it said back to the speaker.

What we do know for a fact is that more words got added over time.

How so?

Well, in the same way “The chicken was the egg’s idea for getting more eggs” (Marshall McLuhan), so “The word-user was the word’s idea for getting more words” (Beat Schindler).

Both strategies, the egg’s and the word’s, paid off in more ways than one.

Words today

In the wordless world

In the wordless world, words don’t exist for self-evident reasons.

In the wordy world

In the wordy world of word-users, we’ve gone from 1 word 13,750 years ago, to the following numbers now (see below):

  • 24.9 million words
    According to wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary “the world’s most-read reference work”
  • 4.5 billion words
    According to collins.co.uk/pages/elt “analytical database with over 4.5 billion words”
  • 21.36 billion words
    According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dictionaries “the world’s most-read reference work”
  • 37.725 billion words
    According to www.english-corpora.org “the most widely used collection of corpora anywhere in the world”
  • 155 billion words
    According to www.english-corpora.org “the most widely used collection of corpora anywhere in the world”

In addition to the above numbers of words, the wordy also invented the world wide web, also known as the internet, which now gobbles up, stores, and disseminates more words faster than anything invented for that purpose before.

Where have 155 billion words got us?

155 billion words — with more added as we speak — have got us to the state the world is in, which is a different story entirely.

You will be pleased to hear that it will also be covered in a future post soon.

PS.

For your reading pleasure, if so inclined, regarding the insightful McLuhan quote above, click here for Marshall McLuhan Quotes Worth Reading Twice.

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Improve on mistaking words for language with one simple technique

By In history, words

You can improve on mistaking words for language with one simple technique:

Don’t do it.

Mistaking one word for another is the biggest mistake you can make.

Therefore, the big advice I have for you, my friend, is this: Don’t do it.

I know what I’m talking about.

From personal experience.

Einstein

Maybe you know him, but that’s not who I’m talking about.

I’m talking about an altogether different thing, a (Swiss) TV show called Einstein that “reports weekly on current and profound topics from all areas of knowledge.”

On June 1st, Einstein’s (the TV show) topic of knowledge was “Miracles of language.”

Einstein (the TV show) “Miracles of Language”

Who wouldn’t want to know, of all things, about miracles?

I don’t know you, but I for my part decided to watch it.

Only to discover there are zero miracles involved. Instead of miracles, Einstein (the TV show) simply mistook words for language.

At the risk of repeating myself, it’s the biggest mistake because it prevents anyone making it from knowing the first thing about either.

It turns out that Einstein (the TV show) simply confirms what everybody knows: There are no exceptions.

Mistake words for language

Mistaking words for language is a common mistake among word-users.

Equally common among the word-users is that they love to blame mistakes on each other or, failing that, on something else.

In this case, the something else is the world wide web because it not only gobbles up and spits out more words faster than anything invented for that purpose before, but also because it is more than the word-users can cope with.

  • “A word is a basic element of language.” – Wikipedia “the world’s most-read reference work” (click here for the full take of Wikipedia’s take on word).
  • “The English language contains several hundred thousand different words.” – ComputerHope “the free computer help since 1998.”
  • “Word: A single unit of language.” – The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary
  • “A modern dictionary for a modern world that represents language visually.” – VISUWORDS™
  • To name just a few BIG mistakes on the world wide web.

Conditioned like that, is it any wonder that the word-users and their children routinely mistake words for language?

I think not, but from Einstein (the TV show), I expected more than simply more of the same.

You can ask why of course.

After all, that’s what words are for.

Fact: Anyone mistaking words for language doesn’t know the first thing about either.

To illustrate, let me briefly tell the stories of both words and language.

With language a word, let’s begin with the story of words first.

The story of words

The story of words with the Before Words and the After Words, and the wordless and the wordy worlds.

In the wordless world

In the wordless world, mistake, language, universe, sun, stars, atoms, particles, energy, electricity, fire, air, earth, water, insects, plants, animals, and newborns, to name a few, don’t exist for self-evident reasons.

In the wordy world

In the wordy world, mistake, language, universe, sun, moon, stars, atoms, particles, energy, electricity, fire, air, earth, water, insect, plant, animal, and newborn, to name a few, exist for equally self-evident reasons.

But there’s more to it.

In the wordy world, the word-users know that word is taken by word, and language by language, that is, you cannot be somebody else because that somebody is already taken, and words are no exception.

What’s more, language and word don’t even look the same.

I’m not one to make up new opinions.

  • “In the beginning is the word.” – Word-masters
  • “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
  • Words are what you respond to.
  • Words are how you aim at what you’re looking for.
  • A word is in the beginning of everything you have a word for, you included.
  • Everything you know is a word.
  • The appearance of words have revolutionized evolution.
  • Words have not only changed everything you have a word for, they create it.
  • Like it or not, words are a gift we’re meant to keep.
  • Words don’t describe the world, they merely describe how we see it.
  • Words have not only changed what we see, but how we see.
  • Words are the boundaries of your environment. Once you see that, they cease to be the boundaries of your environment.
  • Words are not taught at school.
  • The story of words is not told anywhere.*
  • Word-masters have know that in the beginning is the word since the beginning of words.
  • Words tend to get mistaken for evidence, and we often treat them that way.
  • If you have a word for it, it’s a word.
  • We love to use our words.
  • If you ignore what words can do to you, then you can have no empathy for what words can do to others.
  • Words do not matter (they possess zero electric charge).
  • Words have no meaning.
  • Words can be denied only by confirming them.
  • You can bet your life on it.
  • Call it a dream, it doesn’t change anything.

*Except here and here .

If word-users mistook their friends for their enemies, their friends would speak up.

However, expecting words to speak up when they’re mistaken for language presupposes that words have the organs required to care.

Well, words don’t.

The story of language

Language is a French word.

Language is based on the equally French langue, which in English is tongue.

Had those in charge of English taken the pain to translate words from far away places, we wouldn’t now be talking of language but of tonguage instead.

Put differently, we’d know what we, the world wide web, and the TV shows are talking about.

Luckily, it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

To help you with that, we’re not the only specie with tongues. In fact, Earth’s other 8.7 million species of insects, plants, and animals are born in the wordless world.

In other words, the tonguages in the wordless world are wordless, also known as non-verbal, and the number of tonguages is equal to the number of species with tongues.

“Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?” – Marcel Marceau

Why you always struggle to know what makes you human no matter how hard you try

By In history, you

Like others before me, I used to struggle on that great big hill of trying to figure out what makes me human.

What’s up? What’s going on?

I bet you’ve heard those questions before.

Then out of the blue, 7 years ago, in 2016, struck by lightning, I realized that human is a word.

Nothing has been the same ever since.

Of this you can be sure:

When you change how you look at words, you’ll see that a word is the only that can be denied only by confirming it.

What that means is you can deny, if so inclined, everything you have a word for, but to do so you must use it. There is no other way.

Call it a dream, it doesn’t change anything.

Strange

If that sounds strange, maybe you haven’t read my brutally honest warning yet.

If so, you risk missing out on what this post is about.

What makes you human?

Human

To understand what makes you human, I think you should pay the bulk of your attention to the story of words below for a minute or two.

The story of words showing the Before Words and the After Words.

The story of words above leaves no doubt…

  • Words got invented 486,250 years after the brains got invented first.
  • The story of words (1) is equal to the number of the planet (1) we’re passengers on.
  • The animal that spoke the first word on our planet is everybody’s ancestor.
  • We’re all in this together.
You before and after brain, and before and after words.

The story of you shows that for you (and me), the time between brain and words was 486,250 years shorter than it was for the planet.

What the illustration doesn’t show is that time is relative.

Sixty seconds can be an eternity.

We’re not the only ones

We’re not the only ones with eyes, ears, tongues, skin, hair, heads, sex, art, the ability to respond to stimulus, upright walk, bipedalism, intelligence, IQ, wisdom, brains, bigger brains, and complex brains.

However, we’re the only ones with words.

That doesn’t mean we’re born with words. We merely learn them as time goes by.

But this doesn’t make us human.

It makes us what we’ve always been, animals with words, but animals nonetheless.

We’re the only ones

We build schools to learn words.

None of Earth’s other 8.7 million species of insects, plants, and animals attend school to learn words.

Nor do the things the universe is made of, such as the sun, the stars, the atoms, the particles, the energy, the electricity, the fire, the oxygen, the earth, and the water, to name a few.

Yet, they know more than we’ll ever know.

Makes you wonder what school is for, doesn’t it?

What makes you human

The answer to “What makes you human?” is “Absolutely nothing.”

Human exists for no other reason than to make you believe you’re separate from what you are, an animal with words.

Which explains not only your individual behavior but also that of every other word-user on Earth.

We’re all in this together.

What is more natural than that?

PS.

Should you find it difficult to believe that absolutely nothing makes you human, see what others are saying about human.

Relax, I did the hard work for you.

Bing.com

Human: About 36’600’000 results.

Wikipedia the world’ most read reference work

“Humans are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and large, complex brains.”

Dictionary.com

“human. See synonyms for: human, humans, humanlike, humanness, on Thesaurus.com. Adjective: of, relating to, characteristic of, or having the nature of people: human frailty. Consisting of people: the human race. Of or relating to the social aspect of people: human affairs. Sympathetic; humane: a warmly human understanding. noun: a human being.”

Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries

“​human [only before noun] of or connected with people rather than animals, machines or gods, the human body/brain, a terrible loss of human life, human development/activity/behaviour, Human remains (= the body of a dead person) were found inside the house, Contact with other people is a basic human need, This food is not fit for human consumption, one of the greatest leaders in human history, He tried to use a bystander as a human shield, Firefighters formed a human chain (= a line of people) to carry the children to safety, After washing her face, she felt almost human (= like her normal self) again, showing the weaknesses and desires that are typical of people, which means that other people should not criticize the person too much, human weaknesses/failings, It’s only human to want the best for your children, having the same feelings and emotions as most ordinary people, He’s really very human when you get to know him, Perhaps she’s human after all, he thought, The public is always attracted to politicians who have the human touch (= the ability to make ordinary people feel relaxed when they meet them), COMPARE inhuman, non-human, the human face of…, a person who is involved in a subject, issue, etc. and makes it easier for ordinary people to understand and have sympathy with it, He is the human face of party politics, the milk of human kindness, (literary) kind behaviour, considered to be natural to humans, with a human face, that considers the needs of ordinary people, This was science with a human face.”

PPS.

Personalized exploration

Explore yourself — what you are, do, and possess — and gain fundamental insights you will never regret with personalized guidance and resources tailored to your unique journey.
Connect with like-minded word-users, share experiences, and learn together with others how it all began, why we’re here, and why the wordless aren’t.

Join SchindlersWord’s waitlist to be the first to access my knowledge of words.

Start your journey of discovery when I begin the roll-out on words with the harvest moon rising.

It doesn’t take a brain to know much more than you’ll ever know

By In history, you

For adults, the brain is difficult to understand, but for kids, it’s a no-brainer.

That’s because the children are still young enough to recall the time when, still in their mother’s womb, they had no brain.

If you’re old or if you’ve forgotten for other reasons, read on and you will understand.

In the meantime, don’t let the misconception that having a brain is a prerequisite for intelligence, hold you back from staying forever young.

Friend and foe

Word-masters — those are word-users who know that in the beginning is the word — who are telling you that without a brain you’re good for nothing, are not your friends. They’ve been telling lies for thousands of years with no end in sight.

They are your enemies.

Enemies are what you make.

Friends are also what you make. In principle, the same.

And if you can’t tell the difference between the two, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

The story of brains

Possessing a brain isn’t a prerequisite for intelligence.

To understand what that means, it’s enough to pay the bulk of your attention to the illustration below.

The illustration depicts that on Earth exists a time before brains (the first 4.15 billion years) and a time after brains (the most recent 500,000 years).

What that’s telling you is that the fire, earth, air, and water, which together created the planet we’re passengers on, don’t have brains. Clearly, for those four, the creation of Earth was a no-brainer.

What the graph doesn’t tell you is that they arrived on Earth from outer space, which includes the equally brainless sun, stars, stardust, atoms, particles, energy, and electricity, to name a few.

The water, air, earth, and fire knew all there is to know about space travel 4.65 billion years before we, now fully brain-equipped, are still fighting a war that can be won only by losing it.

That begs the question of what our brains are for, doesn’t it?

The illustration is also telling us that the four — water, air, earth, and fire — then invented the cells, plants, animals, eyes, brains, words, and word-users.

It’s only since we have words that we can say that’s hard to believe. But who would want to win an argument with the story of brains?

Earth after brains

After the invention of brains on Earth, other inventions followed suit, namely those of moss, land animals, hearts, flowering plants, tools, arts (dance, music, paintings, sculpture), bread, and agriculture.

Finally, 500,000 years after the brains, the brainless four also invented the words and the wordy.

You

As you’d expect, you began brainless too.

You before brain

A brainless cell that split itself in two made you from scratch.

Does this mean that making you, brain included, was a no-brainer?

Yup, for a brainless cell, it was.

That’s because your brain is between your ears, but what you know isn’t.

What you know is in every cell of your body.

You after brain

What you knew before you had a brain isn’t lost.

On the contrary, it’s still there.

All you’ve got to do is ask your brain to re-member.

If you don’t, your brain will not work for you as you’d expect.

In this way, your brain is identical to everything else you have a word for.

After Words

After Words, you get sent to school to learn…after we’ve just made ourselves from scratch.

Near as I can tell, making yourself from scratch, brain included, takes greater intelligence than anything taught at school.

The times they are a-changing

The brain secret school doesn’t want you to see is made visible by those of us who don’t enjoy being lied to anymore.

It’s only a question of time before you will be released.

PS.

If so inclined, read “Brain Quotes Worth Reading Twice” here

PPS.

Beat Schindler

At schindlersword.com, I will in the fall offer learning experiences that cater to individual needs, thus making sure that everybody gets the most out of their time in collaboration with me.

In addition to that, effective immediately, my Limitless Opportunities Facebook page provides room for like-minded people to connect and share interests.

2 early warning signs that you should unlock your potential

By In history, you

1. Are you tired of feeling limited by your own beliefs?

2. Do you want to break free from self-imposed limitations and achieve your goals?

If that’s you, then these are 2 early warning signs that you should unlock your potential.

Join my waitlist to discover how.

If not now, then when?

Free

My program, Limitless Opportunity, is free (no credit card required).

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t cost anything.

On the contrary, it cost me years of work to make it what it is: An actionable guide to regain control over your life.

I will teach you how to cultivate a growth mindset so you can approach the obstacles from where you are to where you will be with confidence and resilience.

Develop the skills and mindset you need to overcome the limiting beliefs that are holding you back.

Achieve your dreams no matter how big or small they may be.

Sign up

What I’m talking about is a course that will be released in the fall, that will help you understand:

  • How it all began (let you be surprised).
  • How you began (surprise yourself).
  • How to look at words as an extra-terrestrial would.
  • Be the conductor of your life (versus having it conducted for you).
  • Change only how you want to change, at your own chosen speed.
  • Move forward with certainty in an uncertain world.
  • Know the truth beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Going for anything less, why bother?

Call to action

Getting there won’t be a walk in the park. On the upside, the rest is technique.

But don’t wait.

Fall will be here before you know it.

Click here to join the waitlist for Limitless Opportunity now.

PS.

Beat Schindler — author of The Origin of Humanity, business coach, life coach, and founder of Limitless Opportunity

I help myself and other creative mission-driven people free themselves and cultivate lives on their own terms.

Mission-driven people make more and give more.

An Infinite Possibilities(Mike Dooley)-certified trainer, I love catching people doing things right and learning more about them.

I look at words as an extra-terrestrial would, hence have decided on limitless opportunities ever since.

#BRUTALLY HONEST WARNING#: Words don’t matter

By In history, words

Who am I to tell you that words don’t matter?

You can say that as the author of THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY, I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.

But of this you may be sure: Words don’t matter.

Of course, I may be wrong.

I may be wrong simply because different things are said about words, depending on who or what is saying them.

With many word-users talking and nobody listening, it’s only obvious that nothing is believed until it’s true, and ever has it been that what to believe is a question of character and preference, to each their own.

No other word-user can decide what or whom to believe for you.

We live in a world of matter

We live in a world of matter, a realm of tiny particles far smaller than atoms that make up the universe as we know it. But there is a mystery.

Of all the particles discovered, the second strangest and second most elusive are the neutrinos, also known as the ghost particles.

But the strangest and most elusive of them all is the word.

The word defies our understanding of how the universe works.

Hunting for the word

Inside the world-renowned laboratory Fermilab, in Illinois, USA, scientists are hunting for the word, unsuccessfully so far, because the word has even less electric charge than the ghost particles they’re also hunting for at Fermilab.

Fact is, electric charge and matter don’t exist until they are observed by an instrument that can detect them. But words have none. Words have no electric charge whatsoever, hence they are void of matter.

That’s why words cannot be detected inside of a word-user, even by the world’s most sensitive detector in existence, the LUX-Zeplin, in South Dakota, USA.

If people anywhere in the world could detect matter in a word, it would transform our understanding of the fabric of the universe.  

Decision time

You have two choices.

You can believe:

  • Words are void of matter (zero electric charge).
  • Words are what you respond to.
  • Words are how you aim at what you’re looking for.
  • Words are in the beginning of everything you have a word for, you included.

In other words, if you have a word for it, it’s a word, and everything you know is a word.

Last but not least, a word can be denied only by confirming it.

You can bet your life on it.

Call it a dream, it doesn’t change anything.

Or

Or you can believe what you read about words elsewhere.

To know what that is, relax.

I did the hard work for you.

To discover what that is, scroll down to the end of this post.

Call to action

It’s decision time.

It’s time to believe between either of two things being said about words as we speak:

What you read here.

Or what you read elsewhere.

No other word-user can decide it for you.

If not now, then when?

PS.

If so inclined, click here for “Word Quotes Worth Reading Twice”

What you read about words elsewhere

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

“A word is a speech sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or a combination of morphemes.”

Wikipedia (the world’s most read reference work)

“A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its definition and numerous attempts to find specific criteria of the concept remain controversial. Different standards have been proposed, depending on the theoretical background and descriptive context; these do not converge on a single definition. Some specific definitions of the term “word” are employed to convey its different meanings at different levels of description, for example based on phonological, grammatical or orthographic basis. Others suggest that the concept is simply a convention used in everyday situations. The concept of “word” is distinguished from that of a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of language that has a meaning, even if it cannot stand on its own. Words are made out of at least one morpheme. Morphemes can also be joined to create other words in a process of morphological derivation. In English and many other languages, the morphemes that make up a word generally include at least one root (such as “rock”, “god”, “type”, “writ”, “can”, “not”) and possibly some affixes (“-s”, “un-“, “-ly”, “-ness”). Words with more than one root (“[type][writ]er”, “[cow][boy]s”, “[tele][graph]ically”) are called compound words. In turn, words are combined to form other elements of language, such as phrases (“a red rock”, “put up with”), clauses (“I threw a rock”), and sentences (“I threw a rock, but missed”). In many languages, the notion of what constitutes a “word” may be learned as part of learning the writing system. This is the case for the English language, and for most languages that are written with alphabets derived from the ancient Latin or Greek alphabets. In English orthography, the letter sequences “rock”, “god”, “write”, “with”, “the”, and “not” are considered to be single-morpheme words, whereas “rocks”, “ungodliness”, “typewriter”, and “cannot” are words composed of two or more morphemes (“rock”+”s”, “un”+”god”+”li”+”ness”, “type”+”writ”+”er”, and “can”+”not”).

ComputerHope

“Word may refer to any of the following: 1. When referring to a word processor, Word is short for Microsoft Word. 2. In general, a word is a single element of verbal communication with a unique meaning or use. For example, this sentence contains seven words. The English language contains several hundred thousand different words and Computer Hope lists over 15,000 computer-related words in its computer dictionary. Word classes or parts of speech are categories of English words that help you construct good sentences. These categories are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, determiner, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. In computing, a word is a single unit of measurement that is assumed to be a 16-bits in length value. However, it can be any set value, common word size values included: 16, 18, 24, 32, 36, 40, 48, and 64.”

Merriam-Webster

Click on Word Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster to see if you can believe Merriam-Webster’s take on words.

Merriam-Webster also wants you to believe that “a real word is when the word word has a wide range of meanings and uses in English. Yet one of the most often looked for pieces of information regarding word is not something that would be found in its definition. Instead, it is some variant of the question, What makes a word a real word? One of the most prolific areas of change and variation in English is vocabulary; new words are constantly being coined to name or describe new inventions or innovations, or to better identify aspects of our rapidly changing world. Constraints of time, money, and staff would make it impossible for any dictionary, no matter how large, to capture a fully comprehensive account of all the words in the language. And even if such a leviathan reference was somehow fashioned, the dictionary would be obsolete the instant it was published as speakers and writers continued generating new terms to meet their constantly changing needs. Most general English dictionaries are designed to include only those words that meet certain criteria of usage across wide areas and over extended periods of time (for more details about how words are chosen for dictionary entry, read “How does a word get into a Merriam-Webster dictionary?” in our FAQ). As a result, they may omit words that are still in the process of becoming established, those that are too highly specialized, or those that are so informal that they are rarely documented in professionally edited writing. But the words left out are as real as those that gain entry; the former simply haven’t met the criteria for dictionary entry–at least not yet (newer ones may ultimately gain admission to the dictionary’s pages if they gain sufficient use). However, in preparing your own writings, it is worth remembering that the dictionary encompasses the most widely used terms in English. Words that are left out may have usage limited to specific, isolated, or informal contexts, so they should be used carefully.

Oxford Learners

“Word is a single unit of language that means something and can be spoken or written.”

THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY (The book is out!)

By In history, words

Hello everyk

Hello everyone, I’m in Switzerland and a little late to let you know that THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY — subtitled WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT — is finally available (since March 13 this year) from Books on Demand: https://www.bod.de/buchshop/the-origin-of-humanity-beat-schindler-9783739247373.

Based on the fact that humanity is a word, for the first time ever, I recommend the paperback for €36.00, however,it is of course also available in ebook format for €14.99.

If you’re interested in how it all began and how we (humans and humanity), have come about, THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY will be well worth your energy and time.

Both versions of the book are also available from Amazon — look for “Beat Schindler Origin of Humanity” — or from local book stores wherever you are.

The paperback-price may differ because regional conditions may apply, but the Kindle version should be identical, respectively $14.99.

Either way, happy reading!

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

By In history, 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 in truth, that means Google, Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and ChatGPT (also depicted in the graph above) would be right, which clearly they are not.

They couldn’t be wronger if they tried.

Words do nothing but describe the truth how the word-users see 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.

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