If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
My first thought was hate, then I thought about that cool Eric Church song. The song is called kill a word.
The song Kill a Word is great sounds good and has a pretty simplistic message. The lyrics read
If I could kill a word and watch it die
lyrics from Kill a Word
I’d poison never, shoot goodbye
Beat regret when I felt I had the nerve
I’d pound fear to a pile of sand
Choke lonely out with my bare hands
I’d hang hate so that it can’t be heard
If I could only kill a word
Yeah, I’d take brokenness out back
And break heartbreak, stand there and laugh
Right in its face while shootin’ it the bird
I’d put upset down in its place
I’d squeeze the life out of disgrace
Lay over under six cold feet of dirt
If I could only kill a word
Give me sticks, give stones
Bend my body, break my bones
Use staff and rod to turn me black and blue
‘Cause you can’t unhear, you can’t unsay
But if were up to me to change
I’d turn lies and hate to love and truth
If I could only kill a word
It is tempting to uninevent or kill something especially something like hate. I consider what impact hate has had on the world and me personally. I have felt hate as a recipient and as a vengeful person. Both sides of hate cause damage. The hater and the hated come out of hate damaged. To uninvent hate would be on the surface a great idea. What caused the hate in the first palace though? The hate we give is different for many, some are taught to hate others hate as a form of vengeance, others hate is triggered by fear. Because hate is so complex maybe this would be to hard of a thing to uninvent. In the United States we use pennies some people hate them because it takes many pennies to make up enough value on the market. I love pennies because I collect them. Every once in a while when my penny banks fill I will roll the pennies and look at each one and appreciate the art that goes into designing and minting the coin. So I don’t want to uninvent pennies.
I have not answered the prompt yet because it is a tough question everything seems to build on everything else and if you take one thing out of the “equation” everything else can and is affected. Remove hate and what will be triggered? Remove pennies and a past time of mine (I know it is super lame) is gone. It is highly abstract but I think I would like to uninvent or remove or kill ignorance.
I was in line at Seaworld in Ohio when I was a child. Me my sisters and parents were waiting for tickets and above the ticket booth there was a tiled image of Shamu. The image looked like it was underwater and for an 11 year old kid it was mesmerizing. I was and still am curious and outspoken. My curiosity compelled 11 year old me to figure out how the image of the killer whale looked as if it was underwater and the outspoken nature made be blurt out the answer to my mother when I realized it. “The whale is made out of tiles that shimmer in the sun!” My mom let me know that, now the whale will not be as magical as I thought because I took out the magic but I have never felt this way. I love a good illusion and ever since the age of 8 I have wanted to know how an illusion is pulled off. Knowing how and why something works for me, is actually more amazing than the illusion itself.
Knowledge is power and ignorance is the enemy of knowledge. Ignorance comes from other things kind of like hate but, I can think of no situation where ignorance is better than knowledge. This is because, I truly feel that knowledge when applied can solve any problem.
So yeah if I could uninvent kill or remove anything from the world it would be ignorance.
The Corrigan Encore 