By – Dr. Aniruddha Babar,
Asst. Professor,Dept of Political Science
Tetso College, Dimapur, Nagaland
E-Mail: [email protected]
“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”
— Robin Williams
It is said that the discovery of WHEEL changed the fate of mankind, however, it is wise to accept the fact that it is the invention of writing that connected past-present and future of humanity with the vast expanse of TIME which resulted in the timeless revolution that impacted in greater quantum on the very fate of humanity than the discovery of Wheel. Writing is necessary for the survival of humanity. The history of writing may not be very old, however, there have been evidences as to the smooth passage of knowledge which then required to be transmitted by generations of scholars for thousands of years orally in the absence of ‘Writing’. With the discovery of language, scripts, writing instruments and ‘need’ of writing; mankind entered into the next stage of evolution. It has been more than millions of years since the mankind has inhabited the Earth. Considering this long time span, there is a scope to believe that mankind must have generated zillions of terabytes of information. Every generation has a story to tell and that story becomes an evaluable inheritance for the future generation. History of mankind is a collection of stories. Future of mankind is a lesson learned from the past and it is that past which gets revealed in the ‘writing’ of humanity.
Continuous generation of knowledge has been a major achievement of mankind. Much of the knowledge which has been generated by different generations has been disseminated to the subsequent generations. However, one significant fact that may be appreciated that it was ‘seed’ of ‘future’ knowledge that was discovered by the ancestors of present generation of humans. The current knowledge and understanding owe greatly to the principle discoveries of the past which are available to us in a written form, which further inspired us to build up structure of thoughts and ideas to form the seeds of thoughts for future humanity to be discovered and inspired from. Knowledge flows through the tunnel of the words which must be cemented by the process of ‘Writing’.
The writing basically connects the thoughts of people. No one thought could be similar to the other and no two thoughts exist separately from each other. The chain of thoughts which has come to the present humanity from far distant past not only needs to be preserved but also enhanced and strengthened. Present generation which is technologically driven and also materialistically smitten; somewhat not inclined to understand the importance to add up the links of thoughts to the ancient chain of knowledge. Undoubtedly humanity has been progressing rapidly in the fields of science and technology, however, this progression is linear. There is a false perception that the seed knowledge has already been discovered and there is nothing much left to be discovered. There are millions of questions which have been haunting the minds of ‘intellectual adventurers’ silently working in every corner of this planet.
Writing is a documentation of thoughts. There is no quantification or qualification to the nature and identity of thought. Every thought is a result of a complex bio-chemical-electrical intercourse happens in brain hence deserves to be valued as a natural product of human existence. Here, the intention is to put ‘thoughts’ before the notions of morality, usefulness and political correctness. Every thought irrespective of its ‘nature’ need to be penned down and documented in the interest of the future generation. Writer does not have any right to judge or evaluate his work.
Writing is a gift that mankind has given to itself. However, writing has been put under the scanners and filters to find its political correctness. Information and its written expression have been categorized and judged on the basis of the preconceived notions and prejudices of the humanity. Invention of a science of writing and restrictions on free speech walked paralleled for thousands of years, because of which so many links in the chain of knowledge were broken and went missing causing irreparable damage to the evolution of mankind.
Every thought has life. It is said that energy neither created nor destroyed, similarly, thoughts too are nothing but emission of electromagnetic waves-energy; which are transformed into the language and words. The problem of ignorant evaluation of thoughts resulted into their destruction (however, in subtle forms they do survive). There is nothing like pure thought or impure thought, there is nothing like good or bad thought- every thought is a result of a mind that communicates with the source of life. Question is whether man is truly capable to decipher the meaning of his own thought or thought process? If he himself cannot decipher them then who are the others to do so? It has been often seen that the thoughts which has been considered as blasphemous or anti-social or demonic gradually came to be well accepted by the society. The Theory of Galileo that advocated ‘heliocentric’ theory of solar system which originally propounded by Nicholas Copernicus finally found universal acceptance after centuries. Copernicus and Galileo won only because of the written documentation of their thoughts which they somehow kept safe for the examination and judgment of future generations. This is what ‘writing’ has done to the ‘evolution’ of human civilization. Even the Philosopher Fredrich Nietzche also said somewhere about his writing that his thoughts are for the man of tomorrow. To supplement Nietzsche, it may be said that the writing is a documentation of today reflecting on the past for the generations of future to explore the meaning.
Man is a thinking Animal. The Gift of thoughts has not been bestowed upon any other living creature by the creator. Thoughts in the mind are like “interstellar dust”. Our mind is a vast universe. Thoughts are just dust particles in the mind characterized by electromagnetic activities. When those dust particles arrive through the Pen on the paper can change the destiny of humanity. Man is too less evolved to understand the complex realities of thoughts. Poor, ignorant man judges the ideas simply on the basis of what he was being taught by the man-made institutions throughout his life, which means his reference point will forever remained trapped in the social ‘baskets’ created by civilizations. Thoughts are always abstract, complex. There is no idea or thought which is simple to comprehend, understand, digest and reproduce without disturbing the core of it.
Therefore, let us be kind enough to allow humanity to speak. Let us be wise enough to allow humanity to write. Many a times the meaning of speeches, writings and intellectual ‘spaces’ are beyond our imagination. Let us accept this fact and let the future generations decide the fate of ‘worshippers of knowledge’. Let us write for tomorrow. Let us create inheritance of thoughts so that the future generation would not have to wander in the formidable darkness of intellectual vacuum.
