Rock and fire, thing and process: The ancients used both without understanding the nature of either. Rock and fire, two of the earliest, if not the earliest, technologies were largely mysteries to our ancient ancestors. Rocks were blunt-force tools, chippers, scrapers, blades, and missiles. Fire was threat and furnace, protector and destroyer. Rock and fire, thing and process. No need to know about atoms becoming molecules becoming minerals becoming rocks. No need to know about rapid oxidation. Useful thing and useful process. Those ancient ancestors were the ultimate utilitarians: We can; therefore, we use.
And aren’t we just like them in many ways? If a thing is readily useful, we use it; likewise, a process. Maybe you’re a computer expert, knowledgeable in both hardware and software. That’s good. You understand both thing and process. Maybe you’re very bright and educated, so you pretty much understand how things came to be and why processes occur physically or chemically. That’s good. But like our ancient ancestors and our seven billion contemporaries, you still run up against a thing and a process that can befuddle you: Words in the process of high emotion.
Seems that all our words in high emotion are igneous, that is, born of fire, deep magmas exuding as lavas. And when they harden, as the fire dies, as the heat dissipates, they are as durable as a diabase tombstone, black, impenetrable, and hard. They tend to last long after the process has been spent. Emotion, the process, produces word, the thing. We still don’t quite understand the process. It’s not an analog to real fire, not a simple combining of oxygen and carbon. It’s more than rapid oxidation, but like that process, it both consumes and produces. With fire the consumption destroys, but it makes carbon dioxide. With high emotion, anger in particular, the process destroys relationships and makes enduring enmity like runes or hieroglyphs carved into black diabase.
Rock and fire. We've long had a handle on thing and process. We’ve been using them both since ancient ancestors walked our planet. Yet, today without truly understanding the personal nature of either, we continue as a species to use both just as our ancient ancestors used them.
And aren’t we just like them in many ways? If a thing is readily useful, we use it; likewise, a process. Maybe you’re a computer expert, knowledgeable in both hardware and software. That’s good. You understand both thing and process. Maybe you’re very bright and educated, so you pretty much understand how things came to be and why processes occur physically or chemically. That’s good. But like our ancient ancestors and our seven billion contemporaries, you still run up against a thing and a process that can befuddle you: Words in the process of high emotion.
Seems that all our words in high emotion are igneous, that is, born of fire, deep magmas exuding as lavas. And when they harden, as the fire dies, as the heat dissipates, they are as durable as a diabase tombstone, black, impenetrable, and hard. They tend to last long after the process has been spent. Emotion, the process, produces word, the thing. We still don’t quite understand the process. It’s not an analog to real fire, not a simple combining of oxygen and carbon. It’s more than rapid oxidation, but like that process, it both consumes and produces. With fire the consumption destroys, but it makes carbon dioxide. With high emotion, anger in particular, the process destroys relationships and makes enduring enmity like runes or hieroglyphs carved into black diabase.
Rock and fire. We've long had a handle on thing and process. We’ve been using them both since ancient ancestors walked our planet. Yet, today without truly understanding the personal nature of either, we continue as a species to use both just as our ancient ancestors used them.
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