What Are We Talking About?
Like sex, breast-feeding, and chocolate, good communication - a good talk - creates chemically-triggered bonds between the participants that reinforce cultural realities, and sometimes forges new ones.
At its best, communication powers human productivity: buildings are built, lives are bettered, peace is forged. At its sweetest, most mystical, a good conversation gives participants the feeling that they're not alone after all. At its most mechanistic, it keeps us from eating our young.
The Mode is the Message
Communication, of course, is not just talk - it's dance, it's sign-language, it's yelling, it's silence. Like art (and sex and chocolate, I'd add) - you may not know what communication is, but you sure do know what it's not. Harper Lee's eight-year-old heroine, Scout, in To Kill a Mockingbird, describes trying to talk to a tedious cousin, by likening it to "sinking to the bottom of a lake."
This blog examines communication in the lives of people whose work and daily life revolve around communication.
It interviews poets, dancers, police officers, silent retreat participants, radio talk show hosts, construction workers, rock-climbing instructors, waitresses, scientists, and musicians. "How do you know you're having a good conversation?" "Is your mode your message? Talking without talking." "What gets you talking?" "Describe a bad conversation," and "Why talk at all?"
Smart Talk
I'm writing this for a class, learning how to post Podcasts and video, so I'll approach the whole thing couched in the context of current academic research in Communication Physiology - what you're brain's (and the brains of naked mole rats and bonobos and dolphins) doing when you're talking, dancing, singing, and rock-climbing.
Most people interviewed have already thought about or written about their form of communication, so they're already primed. Rarin' to go. So am I. Here we go.
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So wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI grew up with few friends, preferring instead the company of books. Or perhaps more accurately, books were easier to understand. So I read Heinlein, Asimov, Anne McCaffery (with dictionary in hand), and C.S. Lewis to name a few. Teachers would comment that I knew so many big words, but sometimes had problems with the small ones. Today I sometimes wonder if my peers really understand me because they haven't had the upbringing I did.
ReplyDeleteWords are really devoid of inherent meaning. They are containers that form around our thoughts. We choose the words that fit our thoughts and speak them. The listener, hearing our words, fills the empty container with their thoughts that fit inside the containers. To avoid misunderstanding we must know the thoughts of our listener and choose our words that fit their thoughts - a difficult task!
Samuel