Print encourages a sense of closure, a sense that what is found in a text has been finalized, has reached a state of completion.
Interpretation
The act of printing gives a finality to written texts, indicating they are complete.
Walter J. Ong emphasizes the role of print in creating a sense of permanence and closure in literature. Unlike oral traditions where stories evolve and change, printed texts are fixed, conveying the idea that what is written has reached a definitive state, accruing meaning and authority in its final form.
In practice
A writer might use this quote during a book launch to highlight the importance of their printed work.
Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form. More than any other single invention writing has transformed human consciousness.
But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.
Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
...we must first scrutinize thoroughly anything appearing in our hearts or any saying suggested to us. Has it come purified from the divine and heavenly fire of the Holy Spirit? Or does it lean toward Jewish superstition? Is its surface piety something which has come down from bloated worldly philosophy? We must examine this most carefully, doing as the apostle bids us: 'Do not believe in every spirit, but make sure to find out if spirits are from God'.
Shiloh isn’t haunted – men are haunted. Shiloh doesn’t care.
It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet, than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.
Returning to the source is serenity.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.