Valentine Entry

My last entry was November 14, 2008. Christmas and New Year (and Valentines) holidays had passed and, I written nothing. As if I crossed a vast ocean and it was un-eventful! Possibly, as most people observed, silence was when heart talking; with tongue muted, eyes became ears. Silence was language gone universal, sounds and symbols useless, and gestures ruled.

Reading other blogs, written words became cheap! Blogs were inundated by pictures, videos, music, and, interactive games. I saw a blog with parade of pictures. Not a single word described the pictures, until I noticed it was a ceremony honouring victims of salvaging: pictures of wooden box, containing the ashes or remains of the victims, was being blessed by the priest and participants, and the rows of lighted candles on the grassy patch of land, as markers of the unsung and unremembered departures.

Words, though may epitomize bomb of ideas cocooned in readable symbols, were unimpressive to lights and actions of colours ingrained in the picture. But there are powers in words that pictures could not beat. It is the written words’ breadth and depth. A phrase “I think, therefore I am” cannot be illustrated by picture. It will always be a manifest of a living thinking person. Written words are source of endless possibilities and imaginings. Compare to pictures that were timid snapshots of actions gone stale.

But with all the higher value of written words, it would eventually lose, as internet intrudes to each person’s lifestyle. Internet, though very educational and potent, carries the seed of its own venoms. With the promise of speed and endless links, comprehension becomes superficial. Human thought is not dependent from how fast information was transmitted. Quality of thinking is dependent on how complete the data-sets were accounted and related to particular issue or problem. But in real world, complete accountability of information is seldom attained, that is why assumptions and estimates abound.

So what then is the problem of information dug-up from the internet. With the speed and vast links that coming from the net, people had grown to have this false impression of compleat facts. Information from the net should always be treated as shallow and suspect. To be sure, better to check information using printed books or journals that were peer- reviewed, critiqued, and even lambasted through time. In this way, although slow, but you are safer.

Start: February 6, 2009 Friday

End:11:54 February 14, 2009 Saturday

@ home, Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, Philippines