Things That Didn’t Use to Exist

I just read this in my “Friday Briefing” from the New York Times:

In memoriam: Lawrence Tesler, a pioneering computer scientist, helped introduce innovations like cutting and pasting text and selecting text by dragging a cursor across it while holding down a mouse button. He died on Sunday at 74.

Things like that always blow my mind a bit (or a lot). The thought that…basically all the “things” that surround us, at one point…didn’t exist. Until someone got an idea and created them, they just weren’t here.

“Dragging a cursor across it while holding down a mouse button” – I’ve already done that a few times just since starting writing here, now. It’s just one of those things that, to me, feels like…something natural. Natural as…the birds having wings to fly with, or the waves rolling in from the ocean. But of course it’s not – someone once came up with the idea, programmed it, and then…made it happen. And now we all do it – all the time, basically. Dragging the cursor across the text, to copy, and paste.

Yesterday Anna and I watched “Mary Shelley“, about the author that wrote the epic tale of Frankenstein. In the first scenes of the movie, we talked about this, as we watched the people on the screen go about their day “…and it didn’t exist, yet – no one had heard about it, or read it. “Frankenstein” was not a concept, in people’s mind. Because…it wasn’t written yet!” As another reminder of…I guess the brilliance of our minds? The minds that can bring pieces of reality and ideas and fantasy together and create something new, something that just moments ago wasn’t…here.

Thoughts to remember, when we tread onto new paths, big and small. Before they were created, all innovations – including words written – didn’t exist. No one could know for sure that what they were inventing, creating, would become something that would matter to others. It all started out as ideas, steps into the unknown. Let’s all explore more of those untouched corners in our brains and thoughts, friends. So many things – and words – that don’t yet exist; that are still waiting to be born into this world! ♥

∞∞∞

* After watching the movie, we went on to read more about Mary Shelley’s life. Phew. So much…drama. And so very inspiring (as in, walking your own walk even in times and circumstances where that isn’t exactly applauded):

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley

And not to forget Mary’s mother, Mary – leading a remarkable life for the time:

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Vindication_of_the_Rights_of_Woman