No Pictures

You may have noticed that I don't put pictures in my blog. I know other people do. My Mom's blog is filled with pictures. I have lots of pictures and charts and graphs that I could put in my blog. I don't; I don't for a very good reason.

This blog is about my mind, about what I think and feel. It's about the thoughts that worm their way in and through, wiggling out into words that slide from the keyboard to this electronic page. This blog is about expression, feeling, fear, doubt, anger, pain and joy. This blog is a way for me to share with you the things that drive me forward, and the things that hold me back. This blog has no pictures.

That doesn't mean I have no pictures. I do. My preference is to draw those pictures with words, to allow my words to create in your mind a view of life from behind these stained and scratched glasses perched upon my nose. My preference is to leave an uncluttered image, free from the confusion of misaligned objects or distractions in composition.

The image you create your mind is the most powerful image you will ever see. Our furthest ancestors, those who lived in caves and scrabbled for existence, these people painted pictures on walls. They had no words. We have such a limited history and knowledge of them because they simply had no method beyond pictures in which to describe the nature of their existence.

The first great societies wrote. They may have used an indecipherable script or code. They may have written on clay tablets. Their language may have been limited when written. But they soon discovered that the written record had power, that words derived their greatest strength when captured fixedly on durable media.

One of the things that worries me about all of our electronic age communications is the lack of durability of this new media. What happens when there is no electricity? Will this data last for 10,000 years as has the writing of of the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian? Given the ease with which we destroy electronic data, given its lack of durability and lack of portability, will it truly last?

Or will it become, as much of history has become, a temporary repository, passing in time? I am impermanent. This blog, no matter what we all want to say, is impermanent. Each of us, but for a rare few from each generation, is simply a particle in the sea of humanity washing over the shores of time.

Maybe I will be the lucky one. Maybe my words will not pass away as I shall pass away. Maybe I will be remembered. Maybe I should put a picture in here so people will know what I looked like. Maybe not.