My memory for words is ever changing. My french vocabulary, spoken and written, has diminished from lack of use. And yet, were it to remain completely unused for another 50 years and were I then to read a french text, I would immediately recognize those symbols and understand the meaning carried by the words they symbolize.
Writing transcends our own memory. It allows us to leave to posterity a record of our thoughts and ideas which others, in centuries and millenia yet unborn, will be able to recognize and understand and, more important still, will be able to learn from and relate to.
1 comment:
Thanks, Amgad, for this illuminating and inspiring post! Reading it reminded me of the following passage from 'Abdu'l-Baha:
"This age is indeed as a hundred other ages: should ye gather the yield of a hundred ages, and set that against the accumulated product of our times, the yield of this one era will prove greater than that of a hundred gone before. Take ye, for an example, the sum total of all the books that were ever written in ages past, and compare that with the books and treatises that our era hath produced: these books, written in our day alone, far and away exceed the total number of volumes that have been written down the ages. See how powerful is the influence exerted by the Day-Star of the world upon the inner essence of all created things."
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