Mouth to Mouth Resuscitation

[sooZen]

Communication with another can be a very tricky thing and there is plenty of room for misunderstandings. If you approach a conversation or repartee with another without really listening for their intent it is especially easy to get confused or misunderstand what is being said or written. Actually, I get confused all the time in communicating with others because I take most of what is being said literally and not figuratively.

One can "read into" what another says or is trying to say quite easily and it can lead to a confrontation or argument. And instead of clearing things up (which is usually my particular intent) that someone can react defensively and things just get cloudier and those misunderstandings can snowball until there is no consensus ever reached and a breakdown of relationships, friendships or a long love drives right out the door. All because of communications of lack thereof. I mean, trying to talk or write to someone personally about what it is you are trying to say or I am trying to convey can lead to a complete meltdown of the lines of communications.

And why does this happen? Well, our individuality plays a part, I think, but we are a communication animal, we all try to get our perspective across and want to be understood through our writings; our letters, poems, songs, for example or just sitting across from each other and talking. If my head is full of my opinions and I don't leave room for others to express theirs, I am not communicating effectively.

If someone does not appreciate your opinions or want to hear, really listen, to what you say, you are talking to a wall. (For someone that is literal, I am sure being figurative! heh) Adopting attitudes or letting my emotions get the best of me when someone is speaking makes everything that is said moot or an argument.

Now, I have to admit that I have a kind of addiction to argument. It is like chess or fencing with the sharpest tongue or the quickest wit winning out but is that compassionate or empathetic? No, of course not and like I said, it is an addiction to modes of communication that is not particularly non violent. Communicating with close friends or a mate can degenerate quickly if you play these kind of games and they don't realize that you are playing. Because communicating or verbal intercourse is our human connection and if I play those games, liking argument as much as I do, there are bound to be consequences (some good, some not so good.)

It is okay for me to be witty or even play games with words but not at the expense of another. And yet, it is habitual with me and has to be controlled or watched. I mean, don't all of us, to some degree or another, like to have the last word, to have the profound, all encompassing answer to a question or statement? An ego trip for sure, when you play those games, and leaves no room for real understanding for one gets too busy puffing themselves up and forgets what it is that the other person wants to impart.

Haven't we all been around people that all they want to do is lecture you because they are always think they are right? Or how about a person that just saps your energy with their needy attitudes? Or someone that loves to expound and extol their virtues without ever listening to what you have to say? That is why I limit my proximity to some people, self preservation basically. And I try to understand what it is that those I am in proximity to or express myself to have to say and want to get across when they communicate back at me. And ultimately, be aware of my own proclivities in communicating and knowing that I like to argue for the sake of argument and try and stop myself from playing those games. Listening is more important than saying anything at all if you want to perfect the art of communication.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing, and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there."
~Rumi

"When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."
~ Ernest Hemingway

"The best communicator is the one who does the most powerful listening and the one who doesn't react emotionally."
~ Ken Donaldson

[Arcadia]

Communication with another can be a very tricky thing and there is plenty of room for misunderstandings.

yeah!, and sometimes thanks to the misunderstandings we can re-set the communication situation in a totally different dimension... and fortunatly we don´t communicate only with words...! (hardly my argumentations go far beyond the three lines... ). Gracias for sharing your words with us, Soo!!

[stilltrucking]

Misunderstandings are par for the course for a careless writer like me. But I enjoy trying to communicate through the written word. I try to take responsibility for what I write.

games and intentions
"it's just the woman in you that ..."Niel Young?

who knows the intent behind my intentions

Father-in-law," I asked, "what did the rabbi say to you?"
"He told me to become a flatterer," my father-in-law answered. "For eight
days I must flatter everyone I meet, even the worst scoundrel. If your rabbi
had an ounce of sense he would know that I hate flattery like the plague. It makes
me sick even to come in contact with it. For me, a flatterer is worse than a murderer."
(p. 170)

The rabbi commented on the law. And what he said was connected with what
he had told my father-in-law at their meeting. "What should a Jew do if he is not
a pious man?" the rabbi asked. And answered: "Let him play the pious man. The
Almighty does not require good intentions. The deed is what counts. It is what
you do that matters. Are you angry perhaps? Go ahead and be angry, but speak
gentle words and be friendly at the same time. Are you afraid of being a dissembler?
So what if you pretend to be something you aren't? For whose sake are you lying?
For your Father in Heaven, His Holy Name, blessed be He, knows the intention
and the intention behind the intention, and it is this that is the main thing."
(p. 173)
What

I.B. Singer on behavioral modification

http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/quotat ... -35186.pdf

Thanks for sharing your thoughts SooZen
Speaking of games Cecil mentioned that Nate is interested in the checker board. That interests me.

[sooZen]

Thanks Arcadia and Jack for reading and the thoughts.

Jack, Nate has absolutely no interest in checkers, he used to like Connect Four but that was a very long time ago, when he was five or six. He plays no games now at 33 or since a child so I am not sure why Cecil would say that.

[sooZen]

Jack, Or perhaps it had to do with Nate's art? He does like to draw rectangles and squares (colored, not just red and black) so maybe that was it?

[stilltrucking]

perhaps it had to do with Nate's art?

I think that was it.


Chess brings back a flood of memories about my father the chess player.
Nothing to do with your thread sorry.

I am rambling...

I always liked this song.


It is scary to have your words twisted my father, may he rest in peace, was paranoid, always looking for ulterior motives in what I said. It was very sad and scary for me when I was a kid. It took me years to mourn for him. Which reminds me of another of your post about baggage, about keeping things bottled up inside.

If you carry your anger around with you, forever and ever, what does that do to your spirit?
http://studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=98&t=21689

[still.trucking]

Whoa, I never heard this version of the song before now*
this one rocks




*boy oh boy ya know who I think I miss most of all
panta
"before now" I wonder how that sounds in German?

[sooZen]

Panta (Anemone) is on Facebook and I talk to (or "see") her almost daily. She is a busy, active woman with a teenager. (that says a lot!)

Thanks for the musical interlude!

[stilltrucking]

a kind woman
you too SooZen