Words
Ok, so a young assistant district attorney, a vegan foot soldier from PETA and Ted Nugent are walking along a country road one beautiful afternoon when they all witness what seems to be a malnourished man shoot a Whitetail Deer out of season. Upon the arrival of the local Game Warden, all three witnesses are separated so that the officer could take statements from each without them being influenced by the others words.
Question 1) Would the chain of events given by each eyewitness match?
Question 2) Which witness statement included the phrase, “Look what venison does to a goofy guitar player from Detroit?"
Trust me when I say, "Words don't kill, it's what man does with words."
When using words to communicate, it is important the other persons understand what we want them to understand, that they understand the intended meaning. More precisely, purposeful communication is the transmission of intended meaning to others.
Words vary considerably as regards their value for communication. They differ in their level of abstraction. The greater the level of abstraction, the less meaning they have. Value judgements and ideology are at the highest level of abstraction and words used as labels for them are quite useless for effective communication until the meaning of the word used is clearly defined in detail. Examples of such labels are: Beautiful, valuable, necessary, luxury, lazy, free, truth.
I listed the word 'truth' as an example of a label for a meaningless abstraction. Surely 'truth' ought to be more than a meaningless value judgement, so let us look at this in more detail. In example above, who's truth would be more true? Each truth given would be more altered by the witnesses preconceived point of view, than the point at which the incident was viewed.
Ultimately, using words to express emotions accurately to others is perhaps the most difficult communication task human face.
Let's explore an emotional judgement call, "So, how do you feel?" Possible responses could be, "I feel good," or "With my fingers." The first response is ambiguous where the second is sarcastic. Ironically, the second answer at least lets the questioner know that the respondent did not perceive concern as the basis for the question. Ok married guys your wife asks, "Do these pants make me look fat?" Just go grab your pillow and head for the couch to watch the late night Three Stooges marathon on channel 23. Wait! What's her definition of fat? Never mind, any attempt at trying to find a mutual understand of fat, renders the same results. Oh, cool...their all Curly episodes.
So where do the pitfalls actually reside with emotional judgement words? I feel the most ambiguity with adults derives from uniform and accurate definitions, where as in children, not having an pre-established age appropriate emotional response are possible causes. If you're still actually reading this, I will assume that your an adult.
How do you define and where do you look for, "happiness" ?
To me, happiness is defined as a satisfaction and general feeling of peace found within myself. I suggest, "Happiness CAN NOT come from or be found in a thing, a place or an other person." Finding happiness in things out of your control is very dangerous. I also believe that it is easy to confuse our mood with the bigger peace.
Moods are so much more of a moving target than inner peace. To myself, at times I find my mood to be frustrated, angry, tired, disappointed and any other feelings that are often associated with not being happy. Yet I always have a base peace that is supported by my faith that Jesus paid the price for my transgressions. Have you ever been on the top of the world one minute, and then not a short time later? That's our mood and it WILL move around. Let it.
If I may, I'd like to end by using words to build a metaphor.
Let's say I set a personal goal to climb Mt Everest, and I train hard and sacrifice much to accomplish the peak. Upon reaching the summit, I realize that staying at that level would be more difficult than getting there and I must go down. Yet if I did it once, I can always do it again.
Question 1) Would the chain of events given by each eyewitness match?
Question 2) Which witness statement included the phrase, “Look what venison does to a goofy guitar player from Detroit?"
Trust me when I say, "Words don't kill, it's what man does with words."
When using words to communicate, it is important the other persons understand what we want them to understand, that they understand the intended meaning. More precisely, purposeful communication is the transmission of intended meaning to others.
Words vary considerably as regards their value for communication. They differ in their level of abstraction. The greater the level of abstraction, the less meaning they have. Value judgements and ideology are at the highest level of abstraction and words used as labels for them are quite useless for effective communication until the meaning of the word used is clearly defined in detail. Examples of such labels are: Beautiful, valuable, necessary, luxury, lazy, free, truth.
I listed the word 'truth' as an example of a label for a meaningless abstraction. Surely 'truth' ought to be more than a meaningless value judgement, so let us look at this in more detail. In example above, who's truth would be more true? Each truth given would be more altered by the witnesses preconceived point of view, than the point at which the incident was viewed.
Ultimately, using words to express emotions accurately to others is perhaps the most difficult communication task human face.
Let's explore an emotional judgement call, "So, how do you feel?" Possible responses could be, "I feel good," or "With my fingers." The first response is ambiguous where the second is sarcastic. Ironically, the second answer at least lets the questioner know that the respondent did not perceive concern as the basis for the question. Ok married guys your wife asks, "Do these pants make me look fat?" Just go grab your pillow and head for the couch to watch the late night Three Stooges marathon on channel 23. Wait! What's her definition of fat? Never mind, any attempt at trying to find a mutual understand of fat, renders the same results. Oh, cool...their all Curly episodes.
So where do the pitfalls actually reside with emotional judgement words? I feel the most ambiguity with adults derives from uniform and accurate definitions, where as in children, not having an pre-established age appropriate emotional response are possible causes. If you're still actually reading this, I will assume that your an adult.
How do you define and where do you look for, "happiness" ?
To me, happiness is defined as a satisfaction and general feeling of peace found within myself. I suggest, "Happiness CAN NOT come from or be found in a thing, a place or an other person." Finding happiness in things out of your control is very dangerous. I also believe that it is easy to confuse our mood with the bigger peace.
Moods are so much more of a moving target than inner peace. To myself, at times I find my mood to be frustrated, angry, tired, disappointed and any other feelings that are often associated with not being happy. Yet I always have a base peace that is supported by my faith that Jesus paid the price for my transgressions. Have you ever been on the top of the world one minute, and then not a short time later? That's our mood and it WILL move around. Let it.
If I may, I'd like to end by using words to build a metaphor.
Let's say I set a personal goal to climb Mt Everest, and I train hard and sacrifice much to accomplish the peak. Upon reaching the summit, I realize that staying at that level would be more difficult than getting there and I must go down. Yet if I did it once, I can always do it again.
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