This is part one of a two part post.  The foundation for this post is brought to you by Deep Thoughts and Colorado.

I was sitting by the campfire one night with my grandmother and I was thinking about something she told me that her mother once said, so I asked her, “Nana, what do you think the most significant invention of humankind is?” She once told me that her mother had always been impressed with the invention of running water in her lifetime. This is a bit different of a question however. I already had what I felt was the answer in my head, but we talked for a moment about the internet, plumbing, electricity, computers, refrigerators and pretty much all the cool devices that we have in our homes and apartments today. But my answer had been neglected until we had exhausted ourselves on all those things.

My answer is language, so I imagine you can tell why it was neglected. Heck, Nana thought that it shouldn’t count as an invention (I don’t remember why, perhaps that you couldn’t say so-and-so invented it, but if you think about it, while many inventions are attributed to a single person, I bet many were involved).

Without language, where would we be?  This is a difficult question to answer, but since I’m writing this I get to choose my own definition – the use of drawn symbols or produced sounds for the purpose of conveying information of any kind, including instructions. In my opinion, with that kind of definition our beloved human race would be reduced from creatures capable of amazing cooperation to creatures capable of only instinct. There would be no other great inventions without language. There would be no means to cooperate.

So there is my argument for the most significant invention of humankind. It enables us to teach and learn from mistakes that we have not been subjected to, or ideas and processes that we did not develop. It enables us to cooperate by explaining our goals to many people who can aid us, and give instructions to those people. It also lets me write extremely ironic blog posts!

Speaking of irony, there are a few ironic words that make me chuckle. Some time ago, Chris told me about sesquipedalia (a word used to describe long words, or the use of long words, etc). However, to me, the most ironic word is symbol. Every letter represents a certain sound to make, and the collection of letters form the word, which represents the thought that an object represents something else. To be clear, there is a book in front of me. The book is not actually those four letters or the sound from saying the word; they are both symbols that represent the book.

There are also some peculiar phrases in language that make you wonder how they came about. For example, the title of this post: Watch your mouth! Can anybody reading this actually pull that off without a mirror?

Lately I have been thinking a lot about language, however, and it can have its downsides.  Considerable ones that actually get down to the way I interpret the world, and maybe some of you readers do as well. I was actually surprised to discover them, and started chuckling to myself. I hear spiritual people talking about “enlightenment” sometimes, and I often don’t know what they’re talking about, or if what I’ve experienced is anything near what they’re describing, but maybe.

What, you want me to tell you what they are? That’s what part 2 is for. Geez, so impatient.

As a teaser, I’ll add this quote from Bob Marley:

“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”