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It's not about words...
We are talking about communication, talking about language....Not the same thing. It's about inspiration - not the idea - before the idea, before its total, before it blossums in your mind, its about the thoughts and experiences that we don't have a word for...
I'm not telling you where I took that from, although there are a few readers who may have guessed off the bat, which is unavoidable. The reason is simple - because the moment I told you who or where the quote came from, the context, then your mind would go off to that work, replay it, and I'd lose you. Or if you aren't a fan of the work, or never heard of it, you may just shrug your shoulders and go elsewhere.
You might not think about the quote on its own terms.
And I've been thinking about it a lot this week. Blockages to communication - aren't words or language, but ideas, emotions, what's happening inside the person you are talking to and what is happening inside you. The stuff that happens before the words form or what we feel and can't put words to. In fact, sometimes, words just get in the way. They muck things up. Confuse the issue. The old, foot in mouth disease or faux paus.
Have you ever had someone ask you something that you assumed you had already explained to them in detail? Not once, mind you, but multiple times? Or that odd sense of deja-vue - when someone asks you to tell them a story you've already told them before, more than once, as if they never heard it?
How about response to an internet post whether it be an email, a lj entry, a discussion board posting - that has zip to do with what you wrote? Or a response that has clearly misinterpreted what you wrote? Quotes what you wrote out of context and turns it around to mean something completely different from what you intended?
Have you ever talked to someone - were in mid-rant, mid-story, thinking you were connecting, and they turned to you and said something that had zip to do with what you were saying - totally non-secuitor - like, hey the guy over there is wearing red jockeys. Or did you see the Met's game last night, they were great, right?
I've been reading A Canticile for Leibowitz by Walter J Miller (no the above quote did not come from this work) and there's a lengthy, engrossing section in the middle of the book. It's a conversation between a scholar and a priest. Or rather the priest is attempting to communicate something important to the scholar and the scholar having already made up his mind on the topic refuses to listen. Oh he stands politely in front of the priest, nods his head, comments back, but the priest knows that the man has shut his ears to him. In fact at one point in the novel, they literally talk over one another. I won't repeat that conversation here, instead I'll include this quote:
"Don Paulo [the priest] had not expected to convince him. But it was with a heavy heart that the abbot noticed the plodding patience with which the thon heard him through; it was the patience of a man listening to an argument which he had long ago refuted to his own satisfaction.
"What you really suggest," said the scholar, "is that we wait a little while. That we dissolve the collegium, or move it to the desert, and somehow - with no gold and silver of our own - revive an experimental and theoretical science in some slow hard way, and tell nobody. That we save it all up for the day when Man is good and pure and holy and wise."
"That is not what I meant-"
"That is not what you meant to say, but it is what your saying means."
It's not about words, it's not about language, it's about ideas. About the part in between.
I was reading my live journal correspondence/friends list before writing this post. And found as I read that without meaning to, I started to superimpose my own experiences, my own emotions, my own ideals onto what I read - often reacting to words that popped out in the post but not the posts themselves. I read one that stated how people made a topic about race all about them. And I thought, just now, that's actually true about everything we read, see, or listen to, isn't it? In conversations - you are usually forming your response before the person finishes speaking, losing half of what they are saying in the process.
I wonder sometimes if it is possible to communicate information to people if they do not wish to receive it?
Can you convince a friend to watch a tv show that they've already decided is a silly teen girl cult tv series with a funny name? Even if you show them that people with Phd's have published essays on it? Can you convince someone who has decided that Hilary Clinton is the root of all evil that they are wrong? Is it possible? Can University Professor possibly teach a business seminar on communications theory or anything for that matter to a group of street-smart business people without the business people rolling their eyes?
While reading that paragraph above, did any of those words cause you to experience an emotional response and want to either stop reading, respond immediately with a refutation, or roll your eyes?
I watched the film Hustle and Flow recently and in the DVD commentary - John Singleton commented that he almost refused to look at it because it was a black man's story written by a white man. He read it and was astonished by how real it felt to him and fought to get it made. But he had to get past the blockages first.
Communication is not limited to or about words so much as how we use them. Tone and feel of words. And even then, no, not about words. It's about well, seeing past them to the idea and seeing the idea that the originator of it intended.
The quote I put at the top of this essay, as you may or may not have quessed is from the show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was written by the creator of that series, Joss Whedon, for an episode that was nominated for an emmy, called "Hush". The episode is about communication and outside of the first five and last five-ten minutes, and a few words written down by a couple of characters here and there in the middle portion to explain things, most of the episode is wordless.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not a tv series that most people take seriously. Many people think of it as "a teen girl actions series" or as friend of mine once stated - "isn't that the series marketed to teen girls"? Which of course it was at the time. Or a cool series that made fun of the horror genre and added a new teen heroine to pop culture. And if you are reading this and have never watched that series or do think along those lines, it may indeed blow your mind to know that serious scholars with multiple degrees have written and published essays analyzing the series. Not only that they've created whole courses around its study and organized conventions where papers are presented. But will that motivate you to watch it?
Doubtful.
You might think these people have just a little too much time on their hands or are maybe making a tad too much money doing something completely meaningless. So you would not take the time to listen to what they had to say. In fact the moment someone mentioned liking that show, you might, just might, smile, pat their hand, and say, "oh that's nice", nod a few times, and after a few moments change the topic. You would not hear their reasons. And if they asked if you watched? You might say, yes, actually, once or twice - but didn't appeal and you'd be telling the truth. It's not your thing. Vampires? Prosthetic Monsters? A cute girl jumping about with a stake? And it's possible that while reading this essay the moment you saw the words, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you thought, oh, and drifted elsewhere.
Or if you are a fan of the series, as most of the people who read this essay probably are, you may have thought about the episode. Pre-imposed your own views regarding it, not to mention the series as whole. Something to the effect that the episode was about sexual communication or body language and I'm on the wrong track. Or maybe, if you are a scholar or well-versed in the theory of communications and psychology, thought - well that's interesting, but she's completely wrong or what-not.
Or you may have jumped on this essay thinking it would be about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, about the episode Hush.
And that is why I did not tell you where the quote came from.
I wanted you to read the quote without thinking about its source.
If that was even possible.
Assuming you read this at all. Assuming you didn't guess outright. Assuming it matters.
This week I've felt as if I've been talking but no one hears me. As if I've been listening but when I respond, there's a disconnect. That I'm on this side of the glass and they are on that side. We are talking. But the words have been garbled in transit. Only getting portions. That's not quite it though. It's not words. It's ideas getting garbled. The words getting in the way of the meaning somehow, much as they may have gotten in the way above. And I wonder is it pointless? This trying constantly to get words to convey ideas, emotions, thoughts...to a some entity out there who may or may not even give a damn?
Yes, it's not just about words. Communication is certainly not about words. Words are neither the problem or the solution. They are a tool. Communication is well about trying to convey the idea and trying to get someone to understand it. But they have to care. And if they don't...
I'm not telling you where I took that from, although there are a few readers who may have guessed off the bat, which is unavoidable. The reason is simple - because the moment I told you who or where the quote came from, the context, then your mind would go off to that work, replay it, and I'd lose you. Or if you aren't a fan of the work, or never heard of it, you may just shrug your shoulders and go elsewhere.
You might not think about the quote on its own terms.
And I've been thinking about it a lot this week. Blockages to communication - aren't words or language, but ideas, emotions, what's happening inside the person you are talking to and what is happening inside you. The stuff that happens before the words form or what we feel and can't put words to. In fact, sometimes, words just get in the way. They muck things up. Confuse the issue. The old, foot in mouth disease or faux paus.
Have you ever had someone ask you something that you assumed you had already explained to them in detail? Not once, mind you, but multiple times? Or that odd sense of deja-vue - when someone asks you to tell them a story you've already told them before, more than once, as if they never heard it?
How about response to an internet post whether it be an email, a lj entry, a discussion board posting - that has zip to do with what you wrote? Or a response that has clearly misinterpreted what you wrote? Quotes what you wrote out of context and turns it around to mean something completely different from what you intended?
Have you ever talked to someone - were in mid-rant, mid-story, thinking you were connecting, and they turned to you and said something that had zip to do with what you were saying - totally non-secuitor - like, hey the guy over there is wearing red jockeys. Or did you see the Met's game last night, they were great, right?
I've been reading A Canticile for Leibowitz by Walter J Miller (no the above quote did not come from this work) and there's a lengthy, engrossing section in the middle of the book. It's a conversation between a scholar and a priest. Or rather the priest is attempting to communicate something important to the scholar and the scholar having already made up his mind on the topic refuses to listen. Oh he stands politely in front of the priest, nods his head, comments back, but the priest knows that the man has shut his ears to him. In fact at one point in the novel, they literally talk over one another. I won't repeat that conversation here, instead I'll include this quote:
"Don Paulo [the priest] had not expected to convince him. But it was with a heavy heart that the abbot noticed the plodding patience with which the thon heard him through; it was the patience of a man listening to an argument which he had long ago refuted to his own satisfaction.
"What you really suggest," said the scholar, "is that we wait a little while. That we dissolve the collegium, or move it to the desert, and somehow - with no gold and silver of our own - revive an experimental and theoretical science in some slow hard way, and tell nobody. That we save it all up for the day when Man is good and pure and holy and wise."
"That is not what I meant-"
"That is not what you meant to say, but it is what your saying means."
It's not about words, it's not about language, it's about ideas. About the part in between.
I was reading my live journal correspondence/friends list before writing this post. And found as I read that without meaning to, I started to superimpose my own experiences, my own emotions, my own ideals onto what I read - often reacting to words that popped out in the post but not the posts themselves. I read one that stated how people made a topic about race all about them. And I thought, just now, that's actually true about everything we read, see, or listen to, isn't it? In conversations - you are usually forming your response before the person finishes speaking, losing half of what they are saying in the process.
I wonder sometimes if it is possible to communicate information to people if they do not wish to receive it?
Can you convince a friend to watch a tv show that they've already decided is a silly teen girl cult tv series with a funny name? Even if you show them that people with Phd's have published essays on it? Can you convince someone who has decided that Hilary Clinton is the root of all evil that they are wrong? Is it possible? Can University Professor possibly teach a business seminar on communications theory or anything for that matter to a group of street-smart business people without the business people rolling their eyes?
While reading that paragraph above, did any of those words cause you to experience an emotional response and want to either stop reading, respond immediately with a refutation, or roll your eyes?
I watched the film Hustle and Flow recently and in the DVD commentary - John Singleton commented that he almost refused to look at it because it was a black man's story written by a white man. He read it and was astonished by how real it felt to him and fought to get it made. But he had to get past the blockages first.
Communication is not limited to or about words so much as how we use them. Tone and feel of words. And even then, no, not about words. It's about well, seeing past them to the idea and seeing the idea that the originator of it intended.
The quote I put at the top of this essay, as you may or may not have quessed is from the show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was written by the creator of that series, Joss Whedon, for an episode that was nominated for an emmy, called "Hush". The episode is about communication and outside of the first five and last five-ten minutes, and a few words written down by a couple of characters here and there in the middle portion to explain things, most of the episode is wordless.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not a tv series that most people take seriously. Many people think of it as "a teen girl actions series" or as friend of mine once stated - "isn't that the series marketed to teen girls"? Which of course it was at the time. Or a cool series that made fun of the horror genre and added a new teen heroine to pop culture. And if you are reading this and have never watched that series or do think along those lines, it may indeed blow your mind to know that serious scholars with multiple degrees have written and published essays analyzing the series. Not only that they've created whole courses around its study and organized conventions where papers are presented. But will that motivate you to watch it?
Doubtful.
You might think these people have just a little too much time on their hands or are maybe making a tad too much money doing something completely meaningless. So you would not take the time to listen to what they had to say. In fact the moment someone mentioned liking that show, you might, just might, smile, pat their hand, and say, "oh that's nice", nod a few times, and after a few moments change the topic. You would not hear their reasons. And if they asked if you watched? You might say, yes, actually, once or twice - but didn't appeal and you'd be telling the truth. It's not your thing. Vampires? Prosthetic Monsters? A cute girl jumping about with a stake? And it's possible that while reading this essay the moment you saw the words, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you thought, oh, and drifted elsewhere.
Or if you are a fan of the series, as most of the people who read this essay probably are, you may have thought about the episode. Pre-imposed your own views regarding it, not to mention the series as whole. Something to the effect that the episode was about sexual communication or body language and I'm on the wrong track. Or maybe, if you are a scholar or well-versed in the theory of communications and psychology, thought - well that's interesting, but she's completely wrong or what-not.
Or you may have jumped on this essay thinking it would be about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, about the episode Hush.
And that is why I did not tell you where the quote came from.
I wanted you to read the quote without thinking about its source.
If that was even possible.
Assuming you read this at all. Assuming you didn't guess outright. Assuming it matters.
This week I've felt as if I've been talking but no one hears me. As if I've been listening but when I respond, there's a disconnect. That I'm on this side of the glass and they are on that side. We are talking. But the words have been garbled in transit. Only getting portions. That's not quite it though. It's not words. It's ideas getting garbled. The words getting in the way of the meaning somehow, much as they may have gotten in the way above. And I wonder is it pointless? This trying constantly to get words to convey ideas, emotions, thoughts...to a some entity out there who may or may not even give a damn?
Yes, it's not just about words. Communication is certainly not about words. Words are neither the problem or the solution. They are a tool. Communication is well about trying to convey the idea and trying to get someone to understand it. But they have to care. And if they don't...
no subject
It sent me off momentarily to the memory of the presentation I gave at work the other day. Exactly how you describe that you are usually forming your response before the person finishes speaking, losing half of what they are saying in the process. I could see the woman who suggested I do this, office manager but not my manager, doing what you say. She has her agenda, and she picked the bits that she wanted to hear, verifying her agenda. She was pleased with the presentation, but I wrote it mostly just to keep her thinking that I was on board when in fact I have many complaints, which she and others don't want to hear. Team Focus LOL
And words are definitely the stuff in the middle. Works of art, conversation are just a part. What we bring to it, or don't finishes it, maybe just adds to it, I don't know. They don't exist in vacuums anyway I think.
no subject
Now the question is, when I told her to watch the show years ago was it that she didn't want to listen to me, or was she not ready to hear it?
I was actually thinking today about one of my mother's fave expressions: it's not what you say but how you say it. I do think that it's true, there are lots of times when I use words as a blunt instrument - I want to be right, I want someone else to be wrong - when really if I used words as an invitation - come with me I want to show you my perspective - it would probably be far more effective. Since we can't control the receptiveness of the person we're speaking to, I guess the only question we can ask ourselves is, what are we trying to communicate and why are we doing it.
no subject
When we say something, when we write it, do we ourselves truly understand what we are saying, in all its implications? What if a reader, viewer or listener understands better than the communicator what is said? What if there's more than the initial moment? Frex, I'll take a writer's intentions into account, but I'll reserve the right to say, "but it wasn't successfully conveyed in a manner to convince me" or, "the contradictary way in which this was expressed actually destroys the intention". There are people we can never persuade no matter how noble the idea, or reasonable and moderate the mode of communication, but I take that as part of the package: I've often stubbornly disagreed with an argument or idea that everyone else wanted me to accept. If I reserve the right to do that, so does everyone else I argue with, no matter how annoying or wrong they are.
Sometimes I say and write stuff, and I think I know what it means. It's only a year later when I look back at, say, the poetry I quoted, and with a shock realise that it was about something different - something that was partially hidden from me at the time, but which I seemed to sense. That's kind of spooky.
Similarly, I don't think words exist simply as a tool. The words we pick shape our meanings, add colours and resonances that we may intend or not intend. The boundaries of our world are created by language.
When I have conversations with other people about tv shows and films and literature, I often get the same response. Some of what I watch & read is seen as obscure and pretentious, and some others, too populist, trashy, worthless. But I've long since given up trying to interest others in my obsessions. Firstly, I've got too many of them. Also, until people have that moment of epiphany about why X or Y is wonderful, they really won't understand. If someone says to me, so, we share pretty similar tastes, what's the latest thing your watching? I'll tell them. A lot of my friends in Britain routinely borrow all my latest dvd imports, without knowing anything about the shows, just becuase they are confident they'll like what I like. But I don't sit there and tell S all about why Kurosawa is a Must See or dwell at length on Proust. If I did that to her when she wanted to talk Buffy, Firefly, dating and new restaurants, she'll think that *I'm* not connecting to her, that I'm not listening.... Most of my friends have no idea the depth of reading I've done, and the extent to which I think about literature and poetry on a day to day basis. I place no real value judgement on that lack of interest, because some of them like other stuff I like, and ultimately, I still find friendship deeply satisfying because it's all about that moment you share, the experiences you've lived through with each other, the way differences of perspective challenge and meld together to create whole new ways of seeing.
My perspective is this: I don't think that communication, at it's most fulfilling level can ever be satisfied with the conveying of an idea, and an explication of it to someone else (whether that person is resistant or receptive to it). I think when communicating is most amazing is when you get to understand an idea together, and that it's a journey taken by all concerned. No matter how trenchently I state a viewpoint or idea, I'm never set in stone. I'm always willing to move on from my starting point (no matter how little I'll actually admit it during the conversation, depending on the aggressiveness which the opposing view is stated).
no subject
When you gave the quote and refused to cite it, I immediately knew that I recognised it, and niggled at it until I remembered where it came from. And that moment of remembering felt like a point of communication between us, a point of shared understanding - I was in on your secret, I was half way there. Even as you were explaining why you didn't want to cite, I was feeling that communication.
I think communication can be more than about trying to convey an idea, to get someone to understand in the same way you do. It can be about sharing an exploration together. About exchanging thoughts so that you can let someone else build, and often that can be far more fulfilling for both parties if you don't try to direct them.
When I write I am trying to communicate - to myself first, then to my readers. But I have no ultimate control over what they get from my writing. All I can hope to do is to engage their interest long enough to spark off some ideas. And it is those ideas - the things they think for themselves - that give them the real satisfaction. And that is only possible precisely because language is overloaded with nuance and double meaning, and every idea will spark another. That is when we benefit from it.
Besides, I think you are being a little bleak. Can you honestly say nobody has ever persuaded you of anything? Or explained something so that you understood? Of course not, your whole life has been a series of understandings. So has everybody else's. We communicate, and in the cracks between communication can grow some of the best ideas we ever have.
I love this post.
no subject
The post is somewhat despairing I guess, or grasping, perhaps for hope? Or a reason to keep...communicating, even when one feels at times that it may be pointless. Beaten down by the miscommunications which on the surface appear to overwhelm the ones that had gotten through?
I agree with what you state above - when I write, I am doing two things communicating the idea to myself and to anyone out there who may be reading it. Sometimes the communication is directed to a certain person - and when that is the case, the tone and words change to fit how I perceive that person, how I think, intutively they may hear me best from past experience. Sometimes to a group. Sometimes as in the case of the post above, not to anyone in particular, so much as to everyone and most particularly to myself.
Communication when it works is sharing the exploration - much like you state above. Or communing - communion with another, a meeting of minds and souls. Like when someone says something and you think yes, exactly.
But when it breaks down, does not work...it feels like, not sure, like someone has punched you in the gut, or this discombobulating feeling of scatteredness. And you find yourself questioning your own ability to communicate, to form words, to make sense of things. Are you speaking the same language? You flounder. It's like trying to climb a mudslide, you keep slipping, unable to grab hold, yet determined to try.
At any rate...thank you for the response. Your response hit upon the reasons or crux of the reason of why I am driven madly to write, which I guess only a fellow writer may totally get. While my post above is in a sense my questioning and tearing of that very compulsion, which at this point in time feels as if it is leading me nowhere. Not true of course, as you state above. But that does not change the emotion.