I recently condensed my life's purpose into a sixteen-word sentence (thirteen if you don't count articles and conjunctions - yeah, that's right, separate and not equal). It took cooperation, focus, deep thought, a sense of language, and several hours of work, all told. I shared the sentence with my father, who said it was "pith", which I took to mean "glib, empty words" by the tone of his voice. After consulting a dictionary, I realized that "pith" and "glib, empty words" have nearly perfectly opposite meanings. He wasn't dismissing my sentence, no matter his tone; he actually expressed appreciation for my accomplishment. But in that moment of misunderstanding, I inferred from his reaction that pithy words may have volumes of meaning for one person, yet would require significant unpacking to be understood by someone else. When I read my life purpose sentence, its three verbs, two prepositions, four nouns, four adjectives, one article and two conjunctions evoke all my accomplishments, past and future. When someone else reads it, it could just be sixteen words, taken at face value. In most cases, people will attribute some of their own baggage to every statement ("He's lying", "I agree", "I like this", "This reminds me...", "What's his agenda?"). The chances that two people will read the same words the same way are infinitesimal.
So what's my point? That last statement is common enough knowledge, even without having to give it much thought. I believe the thought part is interesting enough on its own merit! I'm not posting my sixteen-word sentence here because it's so pithy that it would take pages of explanation to do justice to the work I put into it. And it's pretty personal. But I am temporarily fascinated with the concept of communication, which is a topic that everyone can enjoy!
I want to communicate my thought processes more than my opinions, because I believe it's more interesting and more informative. I dare to dream that it will inspire original thought on your end as well.
So, if everyone's baggage adds a little personal flair to whatever they hear, then I can see why political messages often gloss over facts to make the emotional message as striking as possible. If people are going to react emotionally to the facts anyway, it makes sense to make the preferable emotion part of the message too. The alternative method of reigning in emotion is taking the voting public step-by-step through the background of each issue before making a point, which is hard to do in a thirty second television spot. The public doesn't have time anyway.
But thinking this doesn't make it any more bearable to watch. Blatant emotional ploys (superiority, fear, sympathy) make me feel dirty when I agree with the point being made and offended when I disagree. I like sober reasoning.
Whoa! When did this get all political? Ha ha. No worries, friends. That's as political as I'm going to get in the foreseeable future. I guess opinions are unavoidable. Communication is a tricky thing.
This is nice. I finally liked a post enough to finish it and display it. More to come...?
