From Scribing To Hash Tags, part two ...

It has boggled me how the incredible diversity of oral languages presented to scribes at Irish monastic scriptoriums could be archived down into maybe one language?

There must have been a lot of ‘that’ll do’ during traslation by these scribes. I imagine them fumbling through their own scrabble collection of letter symbols and sounds, trying to fit oral sounds of the varied native Ghael languages, into their own limited language.

Scripting, and any later writing systems to date, 
could never be an archive of our consciousness, 
our ‘magic thinking’.

Oral stories from inspiration trying to communicate unconscious sources, is greatly reduced by the oral languages, and reduced further by these ancient scribers, the writers.

Trying to be objective, through writing is lifeless and is a false reality about our reactions. To be honest and subjective we still convert oral passion into a controlled archive.

As writers, we convert narration into a controlled instrument. Anyone reading these scripts later, could somewhat clone the content over their own inspiration and personally acquire a different interpretation.

One of the disappointing things to me is when I am in conversations and debates, and people call out “have you read the book on ... by ...”. I would much prefer to hear a person’s own interpretation of the content in relation to their own inspirations.

Personally, I just do not like book thumping!

To me, books are a lovely tool for igniting our inspirational world. I never write books, blogs and articles for people to follow as instructions or quote from. I write books and other works, with the intent that they may inspire individual alternative ideas, questions, and conversations. Even if these oppose what I write.

Some folks tell me, and believe, that examination of phenomena, the mystical, and truths is impossible without writing and reading. I feel that serious disconnection from the mystery, from the truth, may have happened there.

I may challenge the education system, but the wonderful thing an education system always does is encourage us to learn how to read and write.

Even so, when we have learned to read and write, we have sort of gone up in our class division system, just like those accomplished students from those first scriptoriums.

By knowing how to read and write we 
have, unknowingly, taken our first steps 
to assert control over Nature. 

When scribing was mainly taken over by printing presses, mainly produced by Johannes Gutenberg from 1430, plus improvements in the quality and supply of paper, this reduced the number of languages used much more than scribing did.

There were far fewer languages used in printing than were were used in scribing. Thousands of languages perished during the introduction of the printing press.

These fewer languages in printing helped the military during colonialism. Fewer languages and better legibility of texts, from printing, boosted the establishment of the academic world during the 16th century. This aided the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century, followed by the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.

Through printed books, language in archived form also became more available to the masses. This new rapid access to texts permitted silent reading by those educated to read.

This silent reading incredibly changed our human consciousness into believing what we read, much more than what we sensed and could feel. Since then, religion, legislation, and news media have worked to use this to their advantages.

They learned how to control mass thought, belief, and action, from the silently read words of books and broadsheets. This was faster, more intense, and more effective than speaking, preaching, lecturing, and performing.

The storyteller became mainly 
silenced into printed books.

Now with digital, web site and social media exchange, all around us, this has revolutionised books into digital formats. Digitising has further reduced the number of languages used in archiving to very few.

Are we reducing the world to a single language? If this is English this is quite crazy. I do not think it will be quite that sterile, though, but the world seems to be easing into 5 main languages.

Digital has also accelerated how religion, legislation, and news media can control mass thought, belief, and action. The biggest player in this now are corporations trying to identify how we are thinking, through online conversations, and how to quickly turn this around to their advantage.

Online participation has created incredible shifts in thought and behaviour. Our retail habits have moved from buying ‘things’ to all kinds of subscriptions. Tourism has become phenomenal as we wish to experience what we see and discus online with our now few languages.

Digital spirituality seems to be so different to its previous printed book spirituality, and different to how people believed from the scribes. That was very different to how people believed during the more animist approach to the spiritual from the oral languages age. 

In Ireland I can refer to ancient human built sites like Loughcrew, Carrowkeel, and Carrowmore to example these ages changes.

At the time of their building it was just oral languages, probably several languages through the workers who built these ancient creations. Control through animist beliefs probably made these constructions happen as a replacement to the forests there before. Probably no tourism back then.

During the time of Scribing, 

... enforced superstition probably kept most people away from these ancient sites. Their only purpose was for people to sneak away much of the stone to build their walls, enforced by scribed legislations.

When printing became popular and readable by the masses, expression of religions and philosophies changed. Some authors were bold enough to establish a Celtic Romantic Revival. This included a re-invention of a craft called ‘druidism’, so Loughcrew, Carrowkeel, and Carrowmore, became secret meeting places to enact this new romantic religion now informed in books.

Eventually this became popular from the late 50s beat poets and onto wider appeal, and Celtic pilgrimage tourism began. Loughcrew was still quiet and maybe a dozen people turned up at Equinox sunrise and at Carrowkeel a dozen turn up for Summer Solstice sunset.

Since online digital social media, starting with services like American Online forums, Yahoo 360, and Friendster, and accelerated by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. Loughcrew can now attract 1000 or 2000 visitors at Equinox and Carrowkeel with several hundred at Solstice.

Social media has totally changed our spiritual perceptions. Tourism online has pickedup on these and orchestrates our thinking about this.

I believe a clever tourism agency 
could stick a rock on an Ireland peninsula 

... and then viral a potent story about it through social media. The viralised interest could create many bus loads of people visiting this ‘most spiritual rock site’ in Ireland.

Ironically, printed book sales have recently accelerated dramatically. Their content? Stuff conversed and presented on social media ... but the printed book is believed to validate Facebook posts much more than if they remained just as Facebook posts.

In Ireland there has recently been a huge escalation in the sales of 8 to 30 seater buses with their drivers learning to become mythical, spiritual and folklore guides.

Tourism people are demanding more intimate and more spiritual feeling ‘pilgrimages’ to these places posted and discussed on social media ... especially the new spiritually indoctrinated rocks.

The Internet now brings access to knowledge greater than humans have ever had access to. A young child can now easily access information such as animals going extinct, and develop an understanding of Climate Change.

A downside of the online digital information systems technology is it’s ability to distract us. We become very fickle to commitments, reducing ourselves to no commitments.

Digital devices can isolate us. An example is carrying and constantly watching our smart phones rather than start or join in conversations around us.

Some people may now believe that information delivered through digital formats is the most brutal form of information that humans have ever known ... especially #hashtag language.

Are we loosing our analogue delivery 
of information that humanity has used 
since it’s existence?

Through the screens, the Internet can also convey information through images and sounds, but it can deprive us of other sensations, and connections, that become unavailable. If so, that is a tragic isolation.

Is our conversation, that was moved from oral to print, now shifting into just pictographic emoticons? ... and #hashtags?

Online video has become cinema-for-all, and often more than 10 seconds of video, we can be bored and move on to the nest video. Online photos may tell us many stories, though.

What about ‘spoken word’?

The online podcast is starting to become a powerful and influential new medium. Oral poetry? On podcasts? Is this taking us back to our roots?

Through the ages, poetry has played with Nature, while I feel that prose and novels move readers into the interior world and enchanted influence of the narrator.

Weather forecasting can be one example of this.

I like to post my own interpretation of our local weather forecast on Facebook. If I talked about wind storms or flooding downpour in a prose or book text it would seem to be descriptive content, but alone serves no moral purpose.

If I served the weather forecast as a poem, then it could seem more present, and in dialogue with what is happening.

Booky people may interpret and explain challenging weather with terms such as fronts and air currents plus serve reasons why there is nothing anyone can do to alter these conditions.

A poet may proclaim that challenging weather is a reaction by the Gods in response to our behaviour on earth.

How can we balance scientific reasoning with poetical beliefs that preach that our actions feed into a collective response?

Can poets bond peoples into tribal identities again?

The laws of ancients, here in Ireland, were conveyed through poetry. Check out info on Brehon Law to learn more.

How can human digital devotees move back out of their solitary lives into tribal society with human, community and environmental responsibilities? Some may say they actually do this online, and through social media are actually changing the world, even changing the universe.

The Internet can be a deceiving realm where we may feel as if we are part of a ‘Global Village”. We can feel that we are enlivening what is an imagined community of Nature ... where everyone is glued to their screens, where they function from, and eventually fall into obscurity.

So, I have often personally pondered how using the Internet can enhance meet-ups to share the ancient spoken tradition of poetry. Bards In The Woods with Picnics has been o e example I have been engaged in.

Through such a poetry revival, that seems to be already happening, our relationship with the ‘word’ might become restored, and create new collective stories.

For fresh stories to beam out of this Internet age we need to adapt away from our dependence on smartphones. I think our behaviour needs to reverse away from digital influenced isolation.

Meanwhile, there is Nature, suffering from massive injury from human exploitation,

Though few languages may survive the Internet and it’s digital social media, could that technology become a signpost to help us circle dance a unifying mythology, within our precious offline Nature. Without this we seem doomed.

I believe the new bare minimalist language of #hashtags could be best used to bring us back to meeting each other at events, maybe at our homes as small venues.

I believe we are doomed if the event venue is only our screens, and only #hashtags tell us what’s going on.