Meaningless

For last week's task we had to do a new map for Auckland railway. We could add new stations to it as well as we saw fit.

Below is my map :D

Click on it for a bigger image.

For me I paid special attention to the look of the map. I didn't want it to look like a normal map with ugly rectangles everywhere, which is what a lot of maps look like. I like circles more because they're my favourite shape, especially since I added a loop so that people could go everywhere. I added a loop too so that I could go wherever I wanted and so that my friends right on the other side of Auckland can visit me. I wanted a more futuristic, sleek look as well, which the black and the circle helps bring out with its curves with a moderate use of straight lines. I also made the map square, so that it's more compact and can be easily folded into a small shape to fit into pockets. The black also makes the colours I chose pop out more so that things can be distinguished more easily.





Today the topic was signs and symbols for the lecture. This is my favourite lecture so far. There was one thing that really caught me.

"Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, colours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning."--James

This means nothing actually has meaning until we add a meaning to it. That's when it becomes a sign.

I thought of something like this two weeks ago and it was very depressing. At the time I was wondering if anything actually matters or has any significance. I replied to that, thinking that people think that something matters or means anything purely because it is of their opinion that it means something. But deep down, nothing means anything; things just exist. There is no meaning! The illusion of meaning is only the person dressing up the thing with meanings. At the very core of things in all its nakedness, there's no meaning! I was fine with the idea of nothing in the world having any meaning at all, that is until I applied that to myself. That means I have no meaning, my existence is meaningless and matters to no one. No matter what I do it wouldn't mean a single thing to anyone. No matter how hard I work, it won't have a shred of significance. That made me feel horrible and empty.

I feel fine now, but I'm unsure whether my worst possible conclusion is true and that nothing will ever truly have meaning or whether it's NOT true and I'm just a really negative person. Although I completely agree with the quote above taken from the lecture, I don't want to think about it in a personal way because I know that I would feel devastated for quite some time afterwards at the thought that I mean nothing.


Another thing that caught me was languages. I love learning new languages. Right now I'm trying to pick up Hindi. It's a beautiful language and I think it would become a very important language to know soon. It's difficult trying to learn it at the moment, but I'm not going to stop.

The languages discussed in class today in particular were Asian languages. Specifically east Asian languages, since Chinese looks and sounds nothing like Hindi and there are various grammatical differences and differences in syntax. If it was similar I would be less motivated to learn it to be honest.

Anyway, east Asian languages. This includes Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean and many others existing. The relationship between these languages is their writing system and the pronunciation to be honest. I can speak Chinese, Cantonese, and Japanese and I know a little bit about Korean. Chinese and Cantonese uses exactly the same writing system and the syntax is exactly the same. The writing system for these two languages came from pictrograms in their earliest form. Until eventually it evolved to its present form.

Japanese also uses Chinese characters, called kanji, mixed in with their hiragana and katakana. Kanji are direct copies of Chinese characters. Occasionally you'd find very subtle differences between Kanji and Chinese characters, but they're usually the same. Hiragana is also derived from Chinese characters. They're actually very simplified forms of Chinese characters made into the Japanese alphabet. Katakana is just like hiragana, but even more simplified and is used specifically for foreign European words not native to Japanese. The pronunciation in Japanese for some words are very similar to that in Chinese and Cantonese. Often meaning the same thing and having the same characters. This is because you have pure Japanese and Sino-Japanese. Pure Japanese is the pronunciation that is simply native Japanese not affected by other cultures. Sino-Japanese on the other hand is pronunciation of certain words which are derived from Chinese and Cantonese pronunciation.

Korean has its own little writing system. Once a long time ago, it was common to see Chinese characters being used in Korean language, but now it's very rare.

I think how symbols, signs, and languages are related between cultures in a particular area is very interesting and I think it gives an insight into how different cultures think and what their beliefs and values are like. It also shows their relationships and to an extent their interactions as well.

For example, go through Hong Kong and you would find fragments of English mashed into Cantonese. This is a lasting influence of English colonial rule.