01 July 2011

The Book of Weasel (An Abbreviated History of Voice)

Chapter 1

1 In the beginning was silence. 2 Man, looking across creation, saw this and was content. 3 The vastness of all that lay before him was enough, for as long as he had food Man was happy. 4 And so it was that Man began to kill indiscriminately to make for himself food and clothing.

5 Soon though Man became consumed with desire. 6 And the desires were many, some good, some bad. 7 The desires of Man grew within him, and unencumbered, began to fester within him. 8 Man wanted nothing more than to express his desires in some way. 9 Man knew not how to go about this, knowing only to how to kill. 10 However, Man also knew that the red liquid from animals he murdered stained the blades of the grass and rocks around him. 11 And so, Man began to dip into the blood his fingers and mark the rocks around him trying to communicate his desires. 12 After many trials, Man was able to, in some ways, depict his desires upon the rocks. 13 And Man was again content.

14 Drawings soon became strewn across Man's dominion. 15 He began to grow confused by his own creation, and was again consumed with desire to clearly solicit his thoughts. 16 Knowing nothing but murder and art, Man was growing more and more angry at having his desires and thoughts go unheeded. 17 The anger boiled over in him, and Man for the first time discovered his own powers were not limited to a life of unanswered pictograms and swift death. 18 Man ushered forth his will, resulting in a feeble, nondescript gutteral grunting. 19 The grunting of Man signified in him a great accomplishment. 20 And Man soon learned to point while forming his sounds, and this greatly increased the efficacy with which all Man's desires were unlocked before him. 21 And Man was content a third time.

22 Man and his grunt were soon the most feared creature in all creation. 23 Beast and bird, feral and fowl, soon learned the sound of Man and grew to understand the grunt as warning. 24 Man, the eternal hunter, stealth and swarthy, had given into his own desires for communication, and in so doing doomed his own greatest asset. 25 No longer could Man wander the realms and kill indiscriminately, he would need to develop another desire. 26 Thus was born self-control. 27 Man became aware that the ability to grunt was not that he must do so constantly, and Man soon began to alternate silence with grunt ushering in again his ability to hunt effectively. 28 As result of Man's newfound ability to control his gruntings, Man stumbled upon conversation. 29 Man was again master of his domain, killing at will and communicating the details of his kill to his fellows. 30 And Man was content.

31 One day, Man, while tromping through the wood, began expirimenting with his grunt. 32 This was much to his liking, as the days had grown in monotony of sound and duty. 33 In order that Man break up his boredom, he began trying to change the sound he could make. 34 And Man practiced this, and over time grew able to make different sounds. 35 With different sounds, Man discovered he could indicate a variety of things without need of pointing as he grunted. 36 Thus Man invented meaning and was content.

37 Man and his meaning were soon forever linked as infallible. 38 Yet even so, Man was soon grown discontented again. 39 He desired again to change his surrounding. 40 He desired more meaning and more sound. 41 And so it was that Man, in his growing capacity for self-actualization, opened his mouth for the first time. 42 Whence cameth the opening of the mouth of Man, he grunted and was taken aback. 43 The grunt had become noise both loud and resonant. 44 And Man expounded his understanding and began to form his lips to alter the noise. 45 With practice Man was soon able to formulate noise that expressed the sounds he heard in his world. 46 Thus was born speech, and though infantile Man knew this was good and was content.

47 Man, now with ability to make speech, began to practice this. 48 He sat daily jibbering and jabbering in his home forming new sounds. 49 He combined sounds together and in succession, trying to make more and more sense of his world. 50 Soon Man differentiated his sounds giving meaning and name to things he saw. 51 And Man grew excited by his discoveries. 52 He became determined. 53 The sounds of Man would become his greatest asset. 54 And Man learned that he soon could form words. 55 Unfortunately for Man, this meant that also Wo-Man soon learned speech and words. 56 And though now Man was forever doomed to listen to Wo-Man never shut up, Man was content.

Chapter 2

1 With speech fully learned by Man, he set about making more complex the gift he gave himself. 2 And thus Man became aware that through speech he could tell others of his adventures. 3 Thus Man gave birth to spoken word. 4 The oratory ability became all the rage and Man and his contemporaries soon began to craft new words and manipulate speech into stories. 5 Man was content.

6 The spoken word of Man was to become the predominant force in his ability to practice dominion over beast and other Men as well. 7 The words of Man were of great use in communicating desire and want. 8 And Man practiced his words to be effective and memorable. 9 For even though Man could communicate, he was aware that if no other Man recalled his words they were no good. 10 And Man became consumed with desire to put words into permanent form. 11 Thus Man stepped back and designed language to be written. 12 And Man was content.

13 The written form of Man's speech proved difficult in that he was not able to produce his language where all Men could then know it. 14 This was not Man's fault entirely. 15 Man had neglected that to know language in written form, Man would need to be able to read it. 16 Thus the need for literacy was born and Man soon began to educate his familiars. 17 The spreading of language and literacy soon grew. 18 And Man became content again.

19 The production of literature by Man soon became tantamount in his eyes. 20 But because the demand was great, Man struggled to keep up. 21 Being resourceful and ingenious, Man soon invented a machine to reproduce his language onto paper. 22 And so it was that printed language fostered education of Man, and it was good in his eyes. 23 Man, now able to educate himself, found that invention could swiftly be at his fingertips. 24 And Man was again contented.

25 Through study Man became a great inventor. 26 Trial and error his nemesis but greatest teacher. 27 And Man soon developed electricity to light his way as he invented more things from his language and education. 28 And Life was good, and Man was content.

29 Electricity became all the rage. 30 And Man invented a great many things at its hand, all the while increasing his voice and speech and language. 31 Telephonic devices and televisionary machines and computational components, all were Man's desires and his voice gave life to them in accordance with his will. 32 Man soon discovered his ability to communicate was no longer limited to those only around him. 33 He could express himself to all Men around the world without fear of travel. 34 And Man grew content.

35 Man, now imbued with his need to communicate with others around the world, began to do so at his will. 36 He had grown his voice to be heard by the masses, indiscriminately killing all Men with his ideas and wonders and desires. 37 And though Man was killing his familiars, so conversely were they he. 38 The amount of ideas being voiced soon grew loud and begged for a place to be localized. 39 Thus the internet blog was born. 40 And Man was content.

41 With the invention of a civilized forum to placate Man and his ideas, came also a revision of the language he so long toiled to perfect. 42 Propriety and syntax of voice gave way to convenience and sloth. 43 Man discovered his abilities were once again waning toward the days of grunts and gutteral throat noises. 44 N Man b kuntnt.

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