Sunday, January 10, 2016

Contemplative Communication

In my meditation this morning, I realized that through this blog I have the ability to communicate with more people than I know. That was not always the case.

In the past, to communicate with another human being, the average person had to know the individual to either speak or write some sort of communication.

Way back in history before writing was invented, people spoke to each other face-to-face. When writing was invented individuals could communicate with someone they knew via written communication. Letters were the vehicles for sharing information.

During this time, there existed "town cryers" who acted as the town's communication system, walking around screaming out the news the town needed to know. Orators were popular, expressing themselves to crowds of people they didn't know. But the average person had a limited number of people they communicated with.

Then the telegraph was invented taping out messages along wires, followed by the telephone. With these inventions, one still needed to know "to whom" they wanted to communicate. One needed an address or phone number.

As computers became more common and the internet was created, emails became a popular vehicle for communication, but people still needed to know "to whom" they were communicating because they needed a specific email address.

With the sophistication of the internet and the creation of "blogs", "Facebook", "Instagram" and other apps used to share information, the game has changed. We are living in a wide community of communication without having to "know" anyone, and least of all, know "with whom" we are interacting.

Here I am sitting at my computer, typing on this blog, to send out this communication, without knowing "to whom" I am sending it to, "to whom" is reading it and "to whom" is sharing these thoughts with a wider community. Our community is wider than our personal list of contacts on our mobile phones, our friends on Facebook or our email list.

We are flinging our thoughts out into the ionosphere and not knowing where they will land.

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