Talking
And, more specifically, how it went from where it came from to where it is at now. The vocalization of a few words spoken aloud for the express purpose of delivering a message to another person, or a group of people. Talking is what we do with our mouths and when we link that hole to our head we have a mode of translating our thoughts. By talking we assert several notions that have to do with self and the relation between that and the other, and if the self and the other are the poles then the act of listening (more specifically: caring to listen on the part of the listener) would be the lines strung in between each of the soaring poles. See them link each tall timber all the way down the road - without the line there'd just be a forest of trunks without any connection at all. Talking relies heavily on these three factors: 1-"I am here!" 2-"So are you!" 3-"You must care in order to listen."
We know that around 3500BC the first alphabets were created, and then Cuneiform (pictographs), and Hieroglyphics. These first languages had few rules, generally a symbol was drawn with chisels into a piece of rock and some people could "read" the individual pictures to create a sort of summation. Animals, humans, mythological figures, the tools of their days, all were used to form a language and it wasn't until later that a grammar was enforced on that original construct of culture. The Greeks added the idea of Phonetics as well as the practice of reading left-to-right. Eventually the symbols didn't just symbolize the object pictured, they eventually began to encapsulate the idea as well. Yes, a drawing of a fire could be read as "fire" (the thing) but it could also be coupled with something else and take on an entirely different meaning related more to sensation and less to the actual fire. The feeling of being hot, and all that comes along with it, was contained in that one symbol. As time progresses closer to Now, the symbols lose their shape and become words, yet the reduction of appearance is combined with an over-loading of meaning into the word itself: what used to just represent "fire" (the thing) now must carry within it the feelings associated with that thing, as well as an endless line of interpretations of that feeling (hot = good, hot = bad, hot = inside, hot = outside, etc) and eventually we began placing weight on the outsides of the words as well. By 900 BC a postal service of some sort was set up in China to carry messages back and forth amongst the government and 200 years later the Greeks realized the impact that messages could have on people: They used carrier pigeons to deliver the news of the who won the Olympics to the Athenians. We start with the need to communicate about our immediate surroundings, this gives way to a need to communicate with our surroundings, and finally we have something similar to what we have now: a need to communicate to our surroundings (forgive the pesky italics, they are the only way I know to draw attention to tiny things.) About, With, To: all very different aims. The man who sent that pigeon around town to alert the people about the victory did not care much at all about a response: he simply wanted to transmit his message to the people. This is, essentially, the same disconnect we have today with our Talking: lots of To and little With, and even less About.
My aim would be to write a short essay with fictionalized asides that charts the decline of Talking from the happy invention of the private phone, to the boxed in glass phone booths in public places, through to the doorless phonebooths of modern times right up to the impending outbreak of cellular phones (I foresee using the date of May 1998, which is when the first part of the Finale to Seinfeld aired. In the episode there is an exceptionally small scene between the characters: Elaine would like to make a phone call to inquire about the health of her friend's father who recently entered the hospital, she is on the run and contemplates using a cellular phone to make this phonecall. Jerry and George instantly point out to the unaware Elaine that what she is about to do is not only pompous and dismissive, but is also selfish! The first honest critique of the cell phone in popular culture.) Alongside this downward sloping timeline would be fictional vignettes portraying the disconnections that grow increasingly wider, deeper, and more sad as we humans chase "technology" at the expense of "privacy," and all the unfortunate circumstances that abound. Even more heavy: the essay would trace this shallow arc as it dips down further and further into today and what we currently have in the way of communication: text messaging instead of calling (Jerry and George would have a lot to say about this, had it been around 10 years ago,) computers in our pockets instead of phones, no physical "dialing" and no other real trace of what a "telephone" is (the iPhone is just a slim rectangle of glass, practically, and bares no physical resemblance to the things we used to use to talk to one another and what this might mean to the bigger picture of Talking.)
Those people in the photograph above, they had to know it was coming. They must've known the end was near, and fore-felt it quite early: the photo is taken around the 195o's, when "dialing a phone" meant physically pointing one finger outward, slipping the tip of it into a circular device and rotating the dial until it clicked the needed number. Dialing used to actually mean dialing, then with button-pads we just started pointing and pushing, and now we hardly even have buttons left - just blank screens with things that represent what the buttons used to represent. Those people above - they sensed it! They must've. They have taken their phones and wrapped them around their faces: the first blue teeth! Though I feel their smiles are a sham and the horrible choking of the lines around their necks is all too telling of what is to come for them: communication between devices instead of faces - the telephones themselves will eventually begin to make their own calls - the degradation of language due to the rampant rise of the technology used to deliver that language.
In a way, the revolting of an individual against the telephone (or any of its cousins of communication) is akin to the revolt of the individual against the masses, those dumb and dilluted populations of people gobbling down whatever it creates without ever weighing the creation to see if it's worth it or not. My disdain for the cell phone is matched in several remarks leveled against the telephone in the late 1800s:
"It's a great invention, but who would want to use it, anyway?" — Rutherford B. Hayes, after a demonstration, 1876. (Yes! Just because it can be invented might not be enough validation for the thing to be fully incoporated into our existence. So much so that now we shove them into our ears and leave them there during the train ride, during the dinner with the wife, during the walk to the corner store, chatting idly among the public who want to listen about as much as the person on the other end of the line...)
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." — Memo, Western Union, 1878. (Yes! No sight, only audio. It is widely accepted that 90(something) percent of all communication is non-verbal. Of course, one wonders if Western Union's hatred towards the impending technological advances were purely selfish; they stood to lose plenty of telegrams to the now instantaneous method. But, a shortcoming is a shortcoming.)
"The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." — Sir William Preece, chief engineer, British Post Office, 1878. (Yes! A decidedly cultural argument now: We Americans, who praise newness and value the advancement of all things - we need our telephone. Those Brits, with their tradition and old world ways are still happy to rely on the legs of their youth. While I don't appreciate the mocking tone, I wholeheartedly approve of the sentiment. If simply saying "I love you" to your dearest feels good then I suggest you try writing the words down next time, old fashiondly, then sprint as fast as your legs will carry you to her doorstep and drop the note into her dear, darling hand. The handwriting, coupled with the physical effort, will always win - no matter the message.)
