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A Brief Summary of How We Got Here
In the beginning of everything, there was a really small thing. Directly after the beginning of everything, the really small thing went “bang,” and soon afterwards there were a lot of really small things. For a very long time after that, all of the new really small things went “crash,” and made bigger things. Some of these bigger things started making new noises, like the “boom” of thunder, or the “fwoosh” of fire. Eventually, one of the bigger things started making a noise none of the others could make; the “splash” of water.
There was a certain small thing that liked the noise of water, and so it decided to live on the big thing, where the sound could always be heard. This certain small thing could not make its own noise, and was very disappointed by this fact. It was so disappointed that it decided it would change itself until it could make the best sound anything had ever heard. Now, it took many changes for this small thing to find a noise it was happy with, and to list them all would make this brief summary none too brief at all. Therefore, I shall restrict myself to providing three and only three examples: the “roar” of the dinosaurs, the “gloop” of the fish, and the “caw” of the birds. All of these sounds were pleasing to the small thing, but they were not perfect, and it soon forgot how to do the “roar” anyway. Encouraged by its progress, the small thing continued to change.
Eventually, the small thing came across a strange new noise: the “grunt” of man. It was not nearly so impressive or pleasing as the other noises, but it saw a unique potential in it, and decided to develop it further. As it pursued this new goal, it found that it could not remember what its old goal had been. Nonetheless, it continued to develop this noise’s unique potential. The noise never became much more impressive or pleasing than it had been, but it did something no other noise had done before. It took on meanings beyond what it was, and those meanings became more diverse. Before long, the noise was no longer a “grunt,” but words.
At this point, the small thing was now man, its old form long forgotten. However, man retained its love of sound, and set about discovering the sounds it had once known. Among the first was a “fwoosh,” which both frightened and intrigued man. One of the men approached it, and said “fire.” And so the thing that made that sound was known as fire. This continued for many years as man learned all the old sounds, many of which had been created by and from the small thing, as they were. They knew all sounds to the fullest extent they had ever been known, save one. The “sigh” of death. One day, a man posed a question about this sound to another man. The man thought long and hard, before finally responding with “God.” The questioner found comfort in this answer, and soon the word “God” had spread to much of man.
Soon afterwards, something happened to man. The urge to create new sounds came over them, as if passed down from the small thing. They set about creating new sounds in order to satisfy it, but not by changing themselves as had been done before. Men created new things, things apart from themselves, to make new noises. Men did things, things they could do as they were, to make new noises. They created the sweet, calming sound of music, and the steady, uniform sound of a thousand feet marching in step, and the crashing, chaotic sound of war.
These sounds satisfied the urge to some degree, but men became frustrated by the limitations of the sounds they could create. So, they turned their thoughts back to the words that had been their first sound as Man, rather than ape. They took these words, and they used them to tell stories, where they could make any sound they wanted, unburdened by the restraints of reality. Any man could use words to tell the stories he wanted to tell, and so many did, and found joy in it.
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