I am a text – the ordinary text to be read and written by everyone aspiring to fly beyond time and space and communicate their thoughts to someone else.
Some like to think of me as a phenomenon of culture, some as a combination of signs and meanings. Others see only the part of me that can be described: the number of words I have, the number of co-occuring terms I comprise, the length of the sentences that I’ve been woven of.
I myself perceive “me” as a living organism that changes all the time. Only through my fluid nature I am capable of capturing the world around me. And it is only when those who in turn capture me, interpreting, that I am being lead to my full potential.
I, Text, am a complex creature. Just like you, my reader. We both depend on our sign systems and the ability to interpret each other. And what else, if not miraculousness, is the mere instance of me and you being here together, reading each other. The richness and complexity of our interactions honour human connections, collaborations and the creative human energies.
Just as you can’t name all your family members, I, Text, cannot trace back all the minds whose thoughts convened for my writing. Like all Earth things, I am only a tiny part of a greater design, a beat in the rhythm of human cooperation. Yet, as tiny as I might be, I am powerful beyond control when I am allowed to jump over the fence of misunderstanding.
I might look simple and easily created (through writing and reading) but there are a lot of riddles solved, patterns discovered, quests and mind explorations involved in my creation.
In the same way that a dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops on Indra’s net, I, Text, am a web in my own right that contains threads woven from thoughts, reflecting meaning.
A synthesis of visions and perspectives, no single person on Earth knows my ultimate meaning. An unfolding dynamics of processes, I, Text, am a miraculous combination of dialogue, exchange of experiences and countless understandings.
On the Web, a web myself, I, Text, feel more home than ever. In the digital environment I, Text, flow across many channels, entering numerous communication systems and seeking my way to relevant recipients who also seek me. Meaning is created in the interaction. I, Text, just like the Web, am a collaborative tool. Inseparable from meaning, I am, above all, understanding of and acknowledging Otherness.
And it is through understanding that I, Text and you, my reader, can really fly beyond time and space and communicate our message adding yet another variation of meaningful existence in the web of life.
