The most often overlooked part of humanity is that it’s a word.
Many word-users believe humanity is what it describes, is how it usually works.
That is a BIG mistake.
This post is an attempt to explain why that is.
Who am I to talk in turn?
I’m the author of THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY, subtitled WHAT CAN BE DENIED ONLY BY CONFIRMING IT.
The book is based on the fact that humanity is a word.
I originally noticed that humanity is a word back in 2016.
It felt like being struck by lightning.
Though I’ve never been actually struck by lightning on my journey before, the experience changed my view of the words more than any other experience before or since.
Until 2016, I used to believe the words I was told. Like everybody else, or so it seems, I believed humanity is what it says in the various reference works online and off.
Little wonder I was also confused like everybody else, or so it seemed to me at the time.
But when I could clearly see, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that humanity is a word, it changed everything — meaning it forever changed how I look at everything I have a word for.
As it is true that the stars are always there, even in the full sun, so it is for words.
Even when we don’t see, notice, or pay attention to the words, they’re always there, night and day.
Call it a dream, it doesn’t change anything.
Humanity is a word
That humanity is a word can be denied only by confirming it, meaning only by using it.
Without words, humanity doesn’t exist.
Nor does anything for which we’ve invented words since words first appeared 13,750 years ago, when the age was stone, the Sahara green, Northern Europe under 1-mile-thick ice, and writing hadn’t been invented yet.
Time-out
Now it’s time to put the theory to the test, for which, near as I can tell, there is but one way.
Practice trumps theory. Every time,
See for yourself if you can deny humanity without using it, that is without confirming it.
There may be resistance to believe that a word can be denied only by confirming it, but that’s nothing to fear or worry about.
On the contrary…
Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“When you drive your car at night, you can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E. L. Doctorow
Do I dare predict it won’t be long before you join the few who clearly see that the most overlooked part of humanity is that it’s a word? Yes I do.
Because behind every new horizon there will always be more to see…
New landscapes will unfold, but everybody knows that those landscapes have been there all along — the unfolding is you, and you alone
You shall change only when and how you want to change, at your own chosen speed, which will get you from where you are to where you want to be.
Acceptance
Only you can accept this.
No other word and nobody else can accept it for you.
But when you change how you look at words, the world changes. On that, my friend, I give you my word.
Before Words, After Words
Acceptance allows you to clearly see there is a Before Words and a After Words.
I’m not one to make up new opinions.
In the beginning is the word.
Without words, humanity don’t exist.
Let alone sapiens.
In the wordless world
In the wordless world, words don’t exist for self-evident reasons.
In the wordy world
In the wordy world, if you have a word for it, it’s a word.
The best is yet to come: A word couldn’t be anything else if it tried.
Simple
If you have a word for it, it’s a word.
It looks simple on paper, but you might find it difficult to believe in practice.
And how is it supposed to save us from a war we cannot win?
Currently, man is waging war against nature. If he wins, he is lost”. – Hubert Reeves
You cannot win with a losing hand. Nor can the rest of humanity.
How did humanity ever come so far?
About words
All kinds of things are being said about words, depending on who is saying them.
What’s more, there is nothing new about it.
It’s been going on for thousands of years.
But there’s a difference.
What or whom to believe is all up to you.
Because what to believe, or what not to believe, is a question of character and personal preference.
To each their own.
No other word and other word-user can believe it for you.
And for what to believe, or what not to believe, about words, your choices are:
- You can believe that if you have a word for it, it’s a word.
- Or you can believe the internet (I did the hard work for you, so you don’t have to):
Wikipedia (the free encyclopedia, the self-declared world’s most-read reference work with 2.5 billion unique visitors a month): “Word: Part of a series on Linguistics, General linguistics, Applied linguistics, Theoretical frameworks. In linguistics, a word of a spoken language can be defined as the smallest sequence of phonemes that can be uttered in isolation with objective or practical meaning. In many languages, words also correspond to sequences of graphemes (“letters”) in their standard writing systems that are delimited by spaces wider than the normal inter-letter space, or by other graphical conventions.[1] The concept of “word” is usually distinguished from that of a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of word which has a meaning, even if it will not stand on its own together or in other small words. In many languages, the notion of what constitutes a “word” may be learned as part of learning the writing system.[1] 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. There still remains no consensus among linguists about the proper definition of “word” in a spoken language that is independent of its writing system, nor about the precise distinction between it and “morpheme”.[1] This issue is particularly debated for Chinese and other languages of East Asia,[2] and may be moot [clarification needed] for Afro-Asiatic languages. In English orthography, the letter sequences “rock”, “god”, “write”, “with”, “the”, “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”). 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.” 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”).”
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “Word: A speech sound or series of speech sounds that symbolizes and communicates a meaning usually without being divisible into smaller units capable of independent use.”
The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary: “Word: A single unit of language that means something and can be spoken or written.”
Etymology Online: “Word: Speech, talk, utterance, sentence, statement, news, report, word.”
Thesaurus: “Word: discussion. Synonyms for word: conversation, talk, chat, chitchat, colloquy, confab, confabulation, consultation, discussion, tête-à-tête.”
ChatGPT: “A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more spoken or written sounds or symbols. It is the basic building block of communication and allows us to convey ideas, thoughts, and emotions.”
Words
You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing everything with logic. If words control you that means everyone else can control you.” – Bruce Lee
If you don’t decide how you respond to words, then you have already made a decision, haven’t you?
You can ask why.
That’s the beauty of free.
Tagged With: change, history, humanity human, quotes, words
