Perception

Magna res est vocis et silentii temperamentum --"The great thing is to know when to speak and when to keep quiet"

Although it's an odd memory the "lesson" I learned from a guy named Patrick in college has remained with me. He was an interesting guy...the first person I really ever hung out with who was into recreational drugs (he often tried things that he didn't even know the name for). I learned how a water bong worked and how people decided what to purchase from their suppliers. Important learning for a naive college freshman who had traveled the world but knew little about this side of life.

But the lesson I learned had nothing to do with drug use or naiveté. Our conversations helped me develop my concept of communication, that I believe to this day. You see, Patrick and I were completely different. We both spoke English as a first language, but the way that we spoke and the things we chose to say were completely different. I don't know how to explain this and I no longer can quote things he said, but I know that 50% of the time I didn't have a clue what he was saying. He would say the words, I would hear them and then they translated to no recognizable concept in my head, or would translate to something completely wrong. Simirla to thsoe sutdys taht say you cuodl raed dfifernet tihgns even wehn spllenig is worng-- I realized that my brain pieces together statements based on probability. That the words that I hear accurately are probably only 70% intact, and my brain interprets the rest to calculate meaning. So I might hear "I-- r---ee -ite to c-d new bu- I jus- ca-d" and even with misheard letters I'd interpret "I'd really like to come now but just can't" ...but with people like Patrick I might be interpreting incorrectly. He might have said "I'm rolling right now to cut blunts at my joint, ciao"...And my brain would take the syncopation of the phrases, the letters and sounds of the words and try to make a sensible sentence...which was almost always wrong. His syncopation was different, his wording was different, the things he said were different and while everyone else could understand him I'd have him repeat the same phrase 3 times and still not understand. We were on different wavelengths.

My lesson in communication: that we actually hear very little and interpret a lot has served me well. It has helped me in sales--learning to articulate, re-state, re-phrase and use visual aids. It has helped me speak with people from other cultures and with different language backgrounds with shorter phrasing and easier words. It has helped me avoid frustration over things that I know I simply MUST be hearing/understanding wrong.

In general: I've applied this lesson to other areas of life as well and realized that what we see isn't always what we think we see and what we understand of the world has so often been skewed by our own perspectives and understandings that we should reserve judgment. I often try to think of other possibilities for why someone might be saying or doing something that is different or unwanted.

(This post was written almost exactly a year ago (1/22/09) and I'm finally posting it.--with a few additions/edits)

Communication: rules, laws, and frame

I've been having an interesting discussion with someone in regards to spirituality, religion and religious laws. It got me really thinking about the analogies of other things that are governed by laws and rules and how those rules can be bent, broken, or used, and to what effect. Here is a bit of that conversation...

p-I'm saying that religion is a tool to access spirituality...

v-I have a slightly different view on this, but okay....

p-Really, what's your view? Less utilitarian?"

v-Well, as I believe religion was sent, through Messengers, by God, I don't think it is merely a tool to access spirituality--that is just something it occasionally accomplishes. Although it may act to that effect, just as the Gov't may be "said" to be a tool for social justice--it may or may not work that way, but that is not its OVERALL purpose, it is just one aspect at which it may help achieve. As an individual it is easy to look at the gov't and say that its role in YOUR life is to help ensure some sort of rights and justice FOR you, but the gov't itself is not simply for that purpose. Similarly, religion ultimately has larger goals, much broader than the scope of an individual and their spiritual growth. The individuals, and their spiritual growth ultimately are necessary for a religion to succeed, (much as a gov't needs some sense of justice, or it is likely to be overthrown). And certainly individuals may USE it for that purpose alone and not feel a part of anything greater, but I personally wouldn't define religion by that one aspect alone.

p- "I have this piano teacher who, when I think about her attitudes towards the music, I think I would never want to play like her. So conservative and rigid. She really sticks to the rules, when I'm more interested in how I can break them, usually before I've even learned them. But, somehow she brings out things in me and gets me to think about things in a new way, and I come up with possibilities for interpretation (and misinterpretation) that neither she nor I would have likely come up with on our own."

v- I'm an artist. Trust me, I know how much inspiration comes from having rules and breaking them... and I'm constantly trying to break the law of Gravity. But don't you think you sometimes have to really know the rules in order to know which ones you can bend/break, or how far? Scientists learn the laws of Gravity so they can learn how to escape or exceed its pull. Learning to play music properly makes you capable of learning to break rules with finesse, and without ending up with 5 band members all doing solos at different tempos at the same time. (However, I maintain the rights to cowbell solos whenever so motivated).

In dance there is a frame that allows lead-follow without brute force, it is a medium for communication between the two dancers, but in essence it is a set of rules--don't allow your elbows to break this plane, offer resistance in this direction, continue movement until "told" not to... And certainly rules can be broken, but in breaking frame you are ceasing to communicate and simply talking without listening to your partner. The joy comes when you are so well trained in the rules that you no longer have to think about them, and communication is easy and free between the partners, listening to the music, with no focus on the rules, only on the communication. I'm sure it's the same feeling as REALLY connecting while playing music, or singing, or playing sports...all of which require a set of rules to be followed in order to really enjoy the interaction.

I guess the thing I'm getting at is that there is a certain growth and spirituality that comes from following the rules set out by religion, and perhaps once comfortable with those rules we get to a point where we no longer have to think about them, and perhaps they help us become able to communicate with God better, in the same way that the rules of sports allow us to enjoy the game, and the rules of music or of dance allow us to communicate with other dancers or musicians better. Perhaps in failing to follow those rules we have a harder time hearing or listening to our "lead" ? Does that make any sense?