Er hat ein großes Messer
Sara: What do you call a reluctant potato?
Me: I’m not…
Her: A hesitator!
Me: (sighing) Yeah.
I don’t actually watch much television or movies, but I did when I was younger.
I’ve always preferred reading but my attention span is that of a gnat these days – I blame YouTube and the rise of quick online articles.
But I still read every night, and I’ve been really trying my darndest to get the kid to read – oh he came back from camp today, BTW.
Him: It’ll be so weird to wake up without all my friends around.
Me: Sure, but I’m here.
Him: Yeah. And I get to sleep in my own bed.
Me: Always a good thing in my book, kiddo.
Speaking of books, I realized that, not only does he not fully understand how much he’s losing when he doesn’t read, I don’t think most people fully understand how much we’re losing.
Worldwide literacy only happened around 1965 – which is when over 50% of the world could read.
Assuming that 25% of the world being literate is considered widespread literacy, that only happened around 1925 – almost exactly 100 years ago.
That means that reading as we know it today was really only prevalent as a human-based means of communication for almost exactly 100 years.
Assuming, arguendo, that homo sapiens have existed for 300,000 years, that means that we’ve only been reading for .033% of our existence – not even 1% of 1%.
(I have no idea why I have that picture but, there you go)
- If I show you a knife, you see the knife, and think, knife!
- If I show you a picture of a knife, you see the knife, and think, knife!
- If I show you either the word messer or 刀, you probably don’t think of a knife.
But Messer means knife in German while 刀 means knife in Chinese.
To know that Messer means knife, you have to know:
- The alphabet and the sounds each letter can potentially make.
- That the letters m-e-s-s-e-r together make the sound “mess-er.”
Only after you know those two things, you can picture a knife. It’s an added layer of complexity.
But if I said, Er hat ein großes Messer, to understand that sentence, you need to know all the aformentioned AND what each word means individually, AND the grammar structure of that sentence.
Then, and only then, do you picture a man holding a large knife as the sentence reads, in English, He has a large knife.
That’s a huge number of mental steps to achieve one single picture – that of a man holding a large knife.
And this ability to construct such a picture has only happened in 0.033% of our entire existence as a species.
It may be that the ability to write and read was only a blip in time for our species. We may well regress to the point where we can only communicate via the spoken word like children.
And then our brains will lose something singularly unique on our planet, perhaps the universe.
The ability to turn seemingly random squiggly lines into vivid pictures and understanding in our heads is highly unnatural and special.
Because, as I told you years ago, language is telepathy.
On August 23, 2026, at 9:03PM, I wanted to make you think of a man with a knife in Germany from my small apartment here in Manhattan, New York, USA and you did.
If you really sit down and think about it, that is amazing.
And that is what we’re at risk of losing if the kid and his kids don’t read.
That’s something I find just profoundly sad.
Him: But I read already.
Me: Dude you ate, right? But you’re gonna want to eat again, yeah? Books feed your mind like food feeds your body. And if you don’t feed you body properly now, then you won’t grow up ok. It’s the same with reading.
Him: (sighing) OK, another 20 minutes and then can I play?
Me: Oh for…OK. Read for another 20 minutes and then you can play. But you gotta read, man. It’s so imporant, you don’t even know…
Location: getting sidetracked in Brooklyn with my treasure
Mood: more complete
Music: der hat ein Messer doch das Messer sieht man nicht (Spotify)
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