Luke Spear

When presented with an empty space, there’s nothing more fulfilling than filling it in. Being the first to do that is even better.

Whether it be paper, a hard drive or the future, the blank canvas cannot be left blank once noticed. It’s an opportunity that can’t be missed, like walking past a clear sparkling stream in the desert. Often the act of filling will not be lucrative or even potentially useful, yet will satisfy an inner desire that is hard to meet in any other way. It can also become an obsession. As no stone is left unturned, the blank canvas is sought out with fervour. Not only is the seeker happy to find her new pristine canvas, but when it comes to filling the space with words, drawings, thoughts, sounds, lights or other sensations, she is also enthusiastic to try new methods of expression in a process of continual improvement relying on the best of previous expression to perfect the output until she deems it has reached perfection, something that rarely, if ever, happens.

And so it is with spoken language. As if preprogrammed to process sensory input, the brain welcomes new spoken languages with neurons wide open, a vast sea of blank canvas in the mind that longs to be covered with new connections. Reading the language on paper, if familiar with the local alphabet or transcribing system, will act as a support to spoken language connections, but the visual isn’t as stimulating as the auditory that can spur the memory into action with its intricate sounds rich in texture, timbre, tone, melody and implied meaning. To the uninhibited brain many more neural pathways are created through hearing language than reading it, linking similar sounds and tones that are linked to situations common in other languages already in memory.

Empty spaces in nature present a very attractive challenge to man. The utility of filling them is not always evident, beyond auto-satisfaction, but given the infinite possibilities of random neural connections that can be made in any one of the 6.6 billion+ brains on this planet the blank canvas must be put before every one of those in order for the species to continuously improve, kaizen via tabula rasa, if we are to see a host of new creations in art, science, philosophy and human consciousness.