I read somewhere that neuroscientists joke about literacy as a form of brainwashing. Just a quick glance at a string of words and the meaning behind them is immediately and involuntarily imprinted on our minds, whether we wanted it there or not. Think ads on the side of the freeway and in between posts on your newsfeed. Could you choose not to read them if you wanted to?
For the last 48 hours, I have been rediscovering the long-forgotten joys of illiteracy--admiring the dignified, stamp-like characters of the Chinese language on my 12 hour flight to Guangzhou and the long, elegant swoops of Thai letters during my first 24 hours in Bangkok. Unhindered by meaning, I am free to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of words, the mystery and unmanifested potential of their crests and troughs.
I'm sure that I'll soon be frustrated by this lack of comprehension, the suspension of my auto-meaning-extraction capabilities. But for now, I'm enjoying a break from the brainwashing.
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