Language Rocks!

“Words are dodgy things”

A colleague of mine once uttered these words. I don’t believe he intended them to become legendary, but within my circle of friends they most certainly are and, I think, rightly so.

What is a word anyway?

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What is Zen? Zen is a branch of Buddhism that combines spiritual philosophy with living life in a natural and spontaneous way. In what way does an ancient spiritual philosophy relate to modern written communication? Well, let’s explore how…

Why do, or should, we write? Well, we write to communicate ideas. OK, so why not just talk to someone face to face? Answer: it’s not always possible, the main reason is geographical location.  The written word circumvents this.

The written word not only makes it possible for us to write a letter, e-mail, text, or internet content, it lasts longer than the spoken word. For sure, “words are dodgy things”, as they can be misinterpreted and taken out of context, but the written word is historically more reliable than the spoken word, partly because it can be referenced from source material.

It’s up to historians and keen amateurs to offer interpretations of meaning. Letters and documents hundreds of years old still exist today in personal and national archives and libraries. They are studied by scholars and the layman day-in, day-out. Every word is pored over and analysed for meaning and intent. If the Internet Archive is anything to go by, doesn’t this mean that every word we write for the internet or any other print medium carries significant weight, not only for the present but for posterity? Of course it does.

So where does Zen come in (what does it mean anyway?) and how does an ancient philosophy fit in with writing in the 21st century…?

“See it all, till tomorrow”