Symbolism

One of the great losses to our civilization has been the slow dismantlement since the end of the Middle Ages of our language of symbolism. Beginning with a perhaps laudable desire to hear thing spoken plainly and to see things as they are, it ends with the death of a common poesy and with that the irrecoverable loss of the beauteous sense of the connectedness of all created things.

In an effort to contain just a small portion of the sweet water of our shared metaphor in that leaky bucket of civil society's now rapidly deteriorating conventions, I here insert the stopper of a few of our audible and visible symbols along with their respective meanings.

The quick (quarter second) toot on the horn of my '98 Chervrolet Cavalier automobile just means "Hello!".

The more insistent half-second honk of the horn means, "Notice: I'm here!"

The horn blast longer than one half second means, "You, driver of a '07 Nissan Altima are doing something I find to be quite odious and I think you should come to terms with that fact and cease your repellent behavior at once."

Here with experience you may gauge the level of offensiveness of the driver's act by the sound's duration.

The extended single middle finger of an automobile's pilot displayed prominently against the inside right hand front window of a '07 Nissan Altima means: "cricket, you're number one in my books. Thank you for pointing out my errors and helping me to become a safer and more considerate driver. Godspeed!"