Sounds know words can no

Red, Yellow, Butterfly, Flower,
Last effort of Summer to Autumn
A memory to linger for a year.

Brush painting by Janney

For me, its difficult to see this image too close, it feels like these lyrics from an Eric Anderson song:

Yes, I would only like to show you
That is all and nothing more
But I will go unbounded
Looking outside of your door.

I Shall Go Unbounded Eric Anderson

I was involved in my mom’s care for a few years, sometimes i wold visit her and while she did not know who I was, she was real glad to see me, I wondered if it was because I showed up everyday. During the period of this image sometimes I would arrive and stand in front of her and she did not acknowledge me. Often I had a small click-and-shoot camera in my hand which minimized the intrusiveness of the camera as well as always enabled me to have one hand free.

Early morning tobacco-drying barns in Amherst Mass.

Alameda Creek

We understand empirical information comes to each individual person using their five biological senses.While not every human being has five senses.perhaps for some related to genetic conditions and others from outside events later in life . . .

But all people don’t just hear or not hear—or see, touch, taste or smell—the “quality of hearing” is also distributed differently among everyone, each individual has different life experiences, associated with and because of their senses and Each experience is human.

This has an important affect regarding language which probably originated from, and is continually transmitted by, spoken words and human interaction. While individuals encounter ”Sounds&Words” uniquely most of the differences are very minor, you could say ”nano-differences.

In order to survive society (such as we might think of a “culture), i.e. has stability, even though each individual is unique, there has to be enough “close to common experiences” to produce a language, a common shared view of the world. Still there are those who think these human differences are worth killing over.

Words are not real in themselves. House? We all know what is a house, I say “Go to the green house on the left!” and even though that house is a unique house in this Universe, you know what I mean and can find it. We use the concept “house” in the conversation as a tool to see the individual unique house .

Human behavior in a society—which we are by nature—creates a shared common meaning to an individual sound creating common sounds representing general concepts which individuals use to apply to specific situations. The sound (word) is more than just a shared meaning for communication, its a human tool for knowing.

One human quality is the ability to differentiate a “thing” from other“ things.”People differentiate “things” from each other, create a unique sound , i.e. a word for the thing and by using it make it a common shared meaning..How long were people building this foundational human database of can eat this /can’t eat that; safe here not safe there; and so on and so forth. The same wall is different for everyone.

A phonetic alphabet enables people to creatively use letters to create new words and then pronounce a new sound. never before spoken. Over the past 40 years marketing has done this especially in corporate and drug names _though I personally enjoy when Joyce did it in Finnegans Wake.

What ever communication animals have it is not the same quality as human language which not only communicates as animals can do, but creates common meanings among people.

Its fascinating that this quality is a uniqueness of human beings. For other animals sounds are specifically used for communication, For people sounds have common meanings and individuals who share that common meaning may not have had the experience. Animals have common meanings when each of the individuals has the common experience g to be associated with a sound, such as “danger” or “food.” Unlike animals humans can “walk in each other’s shoes”—when we try.

Even though we are all unique, the natural process of be1ing a human being creates a commonness of the uniqueness —if it does not then the “society,” i.e. the individuals, does not survive.
We have survived, we are here ,we all have it, just some use it for their personal benefit at the expense of all.

Senses are how we know. Without sensual input we cannot interact with the Universe, we cannot know the universe. Language is a human created tool to successfully (survive) interact with the universe .

Marshall McLuhan argued that print had resulted in people disproportionately using more sight with less use of other senses, the implication being that print created a society in which people do not use their senses in balance. Specifically McLuhan suggested that the emphasis on “visual sense” ”resulted in only knowing the universe as a bunch of linear causal relationships.

I listened to a report on NPR by an anthropologist working in the Australian outback who was discovered by a group of people who had never encountered a “different people” before .On inquiry how did they discover them? The people answered that, from about a mile away., they could smell them. they know it was other people by the smell and they were curious. (Note: this explanation is over simplifed and over generalized but the important parts are as reported).

EndPapers

i like zen because of the stories.
Monks were arguing over the possession of a cat. Nan-ch’uan appeared, took hold of the cat and asked, “If any of you can say something to the point he will save the life of this creature; if nobody can, it will be killed.”
No one could so the cat was killed. Later when Chao-chuo returned Nan-ch’uan told him what happened. Chao-chuo took off a sandal .put it on top of his head and went away.
Nan-ch’uan said, “Had you been here a moment ago , you would have saved the animal’s life.”

Original Teachings of Ch’an Buddhism Chang Chung-Yuan

When you first read the story you cannot understand it. When you think about it a while you come to understand it and as time goes by you forget it—the story does its job and then goes away.

That’s why I wonder if I meet a buddha, or a bodhisattva, would I know it? Maybe it makes no difference to the buddha, but the bodhisattva who is delaying their “buddha hood” to help me, or someone like me—maybe someone not like me— become a buddha. Why waste their time?

The fashions in the 1960s, 50 plus years ago, three young fashionably dressed urban men on a small bicycle . . .

Three young men in blue jeans riding down the country road in the back of a pick up, the two on the ends look like brothers, maybe all three are, but I cannot know from this angle, maybe you can.

Sharing something common with myself, I could not do it without the camera as I am too selfie-ish.

After a day walking around Tokyo, just before closing I pickup some discounted sushi in the department basement store, some beer at the Ozeki Asakusa Kaminarimon store and transfer images to the hard drive before going to sleep.

The first time I stayed in a Tokyo Hotel my sister made the reservation. It was a big hotel in Shinjuku and it was the tiniest room I have been in. When I asked the english speaking-clerk he said that if I wanted a cheaper room there were two more smaller sizes for less less money.