Signal Changes

'Tapping out a signal.' Envisioning a Morse code operator hunched over a desk, his or her finger tapping out code that traveled along a wire to the receiver on the other end, has given me pause. Pause to think about signals sent via pen and paper and now through the airwaves bouncing from computers to satellite and back again. Communication over distances, sending signals of warning or of joy, have long been how the human race exercises it’s need to speak with one another. My personal experience with tapping out a few words was prior to nurses training in the summer 1965. I took a limited business course learning speed writing and typewriting. I did not develop the necessary skills that even remotely suggested that I would make an awesome secretary. Speed writing, different from shorthand, had it’s own format. I find, from time to time, that I slip into some of what I learned that summer. Typewriting was not taught in all schools yet, but I remembered hunting and pecking only on Grandpa’s old typewriter as a young child. Learning to actually type on a ‘real’ keyboard intrigued me. Now in this age of computers, I am using that knowledge on a daily basis - at home and in my nursing work with much gratitude.

Reading is one of the activities I enjoy frequently. I’m not sitting every minute of every day with my nose in a book, my eyes glued to a page, but I read regularly and often. Each time I read, there is some form of message delivered through the air. If it is a novel, my heartstrings are plucked. If it’s an advertisement, I may get annoyed, amused or intrigued with the creativity. If it’s an article in a magazine or on-line, my heart-strings again get plucked or my anger button pushed. In it all, I can visualize the author sitting with pen in hand or, more likely, at a keyboard tapping out a message for any and all of us to read. No longer a simple signal, but a wordy message.  While I am not always grateful to read opinions diametrically different from my own, I am definitely pleased to live in a country where opinions can be expressed openly. Not suppressed. Unfortunately, and at the same time, we are living too close to an edge where some have leapt off into a hurtful expression of opinion. There are too many tapping out, or more vociferously shouting, their thoughts. Maybe I should be grateful when my ‘anger button’ is pushed. Grateful for the energy I feel when such injustices are felt. Hunting and pecking on Grandpa’s typewriter was merely an exercise in finger gymnastics and seeing a black mark appear on a blank page. The black marks we hear, read and see today have a huge potential to distract us from reality.

“Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires 

both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge.”

~ Nate Silver