Lucky For You, This Is Not A Clay Tablet

Message:"I teach guitar. call..."

Quote:"perception is reality."

Lately I found myself saying “I wish my computer was waterproof.” It would make sense for someone who wants to do homework by the pool and not have to be close to a jack on the wall at all times; where one can sit by the waters edge, bask under the sun, and still get work done. The limitations of technology can span in any directions when it comes to holding us back from some comfort of other. And in these frustrations of confinement - at least for me being confined to my computer, inside, instead of out by the pool where I used to read my books , is frustrating - I often forget, and have taken for granted many of the things we are able to do with computers.

I know, I know. I sound like a spoiled brat complaining about how my computer can limit my range of enjoyment. Imagine my reaction to trying to communicate through clay. It was sticky, dirty, and impossibly hard to relay any effective message. I was back in elementary school, trying to make a beautiful piece of art, and of course the result is a immature concoction of sorts. I couldn’t get rid of my finger prints, the clay would stick to the desk, and when I would try to turn it over and smooth it out it would break apart. Designing on mush is hard enough, but having the lack of imagination or vision for it was a whole other lesson on my part. 

A clay tablet as a medium for a rhetorical message just plain sucks! How did those guys do it? I can literally see the world with the tip of my finger, right now, on my phone; the clay tablet guys would gush at the sight of their ruins on a hand held electronic device. Or maybe not; they would probably think our mode of communication is trivial and limits our own imagination(?). 

It is true that “the medium is the message,” and my experience with the clay tablet proved my message would not have made sense to a 5 year old, no matter how important. If the fate of the world depended on my message, and all I had was a clay tablet to work on, I’d have to say sorry to the billions of people who’s life would be lost because I couldn’t write on a freaking clay tablet. 

I do see how, through changes in technology and the advances of mediums in which we communicate with, that the medium can not only change a message, but it has changed how we view rhetoric as a whole. I am amazed at how rhetoric could have been developed in such a primitive (when it comes to writing on clay tablets that is) time of written communication. The medium then was more the mind, and the advancement of rhetoric in that time is amazing considering their limitations for mediums to work with. I see how the affect of the medium has changed the ability to relay a message throughout history, and with each advance in medium technology, we enter a new realm of rhetoric.