Pure Communication (February 16th) …
February 16 – Pure Communication: For 20 minutes, communicate using only hand gestures, body language &/or facial expressions. Repeat this activity a total of three (3) times today, with at least one of the stints occurring at work/school. If it’s too uncomfortable to simply stop talking, inform your co-workers or classmates what you are doing and invite them to join you for a “silent, yet communicative” lunchtime … Note that it you live alone, all three stints must be somehow engaged in the company of others.
Secular studies have consistently shown that over 80% of all communicated information is relayed without the use of words. It turns out that body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, limbic resonance and hand gestures are responsible for most of the meanings in most of our conversations. While living in Japan for two months during the summer between my junior & senior years of high school, I became well-acquainted with the power of this language of “the unspoken word”. It was amazing to me back then (and has continued to amaze me on all my subsequent trips into lands of languages “foreign”) just how simple-yet-effective communicating with my hands could be.
With just a gesture, we can give another person support,
or express uncertainty & caution.
We can profess our allegiance,
or push another into seclusion.
We can show our appreciation,
or our callousness.
And yet most importantly, I found that the times when I was forced to use non-verbal means of communicating were the times when I really paid attention to the person with whom I was “speaking”. Oddly enough, it was those times when I literally had nothing to say that I “spoke” most clearly. And it was those times, when the cultural chasm was deepest between what I wanted to say and the person to whom I wanted to say it, that I formed my most intimate friendships.
That’s interesting … Maybe we all need is to speak less and listen more.
Maybe Peace is that simple.
See You when I see you …
… and until then, Be Now!
Scaughdt
;