Communicate Like Your Life Depends On It!

I think that communication has two sides. It has a beautiful, original, self-generated and creative side (which is pure CONTENT) and then there is the side which says that you need to say this in this way in order to entice these people, that says that you need to change your communication, deviate from whole truth and/or whole creativeness to bring about a desired effect.

What i mean when i say content is this; let's take an example message;

Sir! It appears that several ships are on their way to the death star!

The content of the message is that there are ships approaching the death star, but not those words specifically, that actual happening. The thought/image/fact is then translated into words as best as the person communicating can, then the person being communicated to enterprets the words and turns them into thoughts. The content is what is being communicated, and the communication is an outer form which is not the content and subject to being misenterpreted.

I would go so far as to say that behind or underneath words lies spirit in the form of thought, idea, intention, and feeling.

In the message above, if the person speaking did not say sir at the beginning of their sentance, then they know that whatever sith lord they're talking to might argue with them about it or demote or kill them. But still, communication has been changged and has become perverse in some way. And if the truth was that the ships were already at the death star, and this officer has specifically chosen not to mention this, well now we're slipping into what is on some layer of deliberate misrepresentation.

This springs the obvious question; "But language teaches us certain things about communication! Wouldn't pure communication not involve language?" and it is a good one. My answer to this would be that there are many, many layers of indoctrination and otherwise things which we did not make or agree to that we have somehow assimilated into ourself, often even identifying with these things. Some developments are good, and some are not. I think that language is a good thing; though in an ideal world we would all communicate in earnest, telling generally the truth and believing others to be telling the truth, not assuming that they are altering their communication to make us believe or do things. Obviously people do alter their communication. But the fact is that people do live in this fantasy world where they believe communication is always in earnest. This lack of self-awareness leads to marketing and altered communication being effective. Where we have self-awareness, altered communication is dead and does not work. Where we do not, we let others shape our beliefs without noticing, and we buy and do things unquestioningly.

Another idea around this question is the important tenet of the fact that only sith deal in absolutes. If you try to string together a chain of "but if you say that then that would mean that" because you take the claims here are presented as and believed to be 100% solidified fact, then you have much to learn. The truth is much more squishy than you might expect; and i'll keep writing on this subject as i think that it's very important for the future of the world. Not like i would be able to seriously effect it, but i can post articles and hopefully make those people and those communities who are the candle-on-the-hill in a stormy world just a bit brighter.

This series will continue with something of a wonderful set of articles on how words effect us, how to do marketing/pr/etc, why narritive is more important than truth today, and how we can defeat all of this. Because we can.