As part of the Alternative Lifestyles blog-posts migration over to the new blog The Professor’s Lifestyles Memoirs, this post has been moved there. To read this post please click the link to the blog.
Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!
image WikiHow.com
While I share my thoughts on how critical mastering communication skills are for life, I will also take this opportunity to update everyone on my job/career status; the other night the two went hand-in-hand beautifully.
The update from What’s My Story?: I am now training with and soon to be working as a tutor with a well-established national educational-tutoring company helping struggling students in areas of math, reading, writing, and test-preps. This is my evening job and the primary purpose of this post. I am also currently substitute teaching in one Dallas-area school district, and soon to be substituting in a second Dallas-area school district; yes, three separate jobs to make ends meet. Despite the long hours six-days a week, I am grateful to be working again. But that’s not what I want to talk about.
The other night while observing and assisting the short-staffed learning center, one student was originally from China. He was a very bright 16-year old boy who spoke good English and has lived here about ten months. He was being tutored in advanced English writing and literature. One of his vocabulary words for the night was “exciting” and how to use it in various sentences. Of his five words to learn, this one was the most difficult for him. Tchang (as I will call him here) could not understand the difference between the uses of exciting versus excited. If you are an American having spoken English your entire life, how would you explain the differences to Tchang?
Our attempts to differentiate the two words seemed to confuse Tchang just as much as they seemed to help. After several different examples, in the end his perplexed expressions never receded. Why?
If the English language is not your native tongue, then of the world’s many thousand languages to learn, English is perhaps the hardest to speak and write. Unfortunately, Tchang was learning just how hard it can be. Empathizing with his frustration I explained it wasn’t his fault for not understanding but that it was our/my language; a very complex and often redundant language. English words and their uses can sometimes have one or a half-degree of separation, perhaps less. Yet they will indeed describe a slight difference…which leads me to my big-picture point.
Communication isn’t just a skill; it is the linchpin of one’s true identity.
If you do not master the art of communication, then life will often seem an uphill battle. This holds true just as much for those around you; their communication skills can be just as trying on your patience like trying to navigate a circus fun-house maze of meaning.
Let me merely scratch the surface of how profound communication is to life. “The ability to communicate effectively is important in relationships, education, and work.” Following are steps and tips for the development of good communication from WikiHow. After the first two highlights are explained, for the sake of time and space go to the WikiHow link for the remaining detailed explanations.
Understand the Basics
Engage Your Audience
Use Your Words to Impact
Use Your Voice to Impact
Though some of us might think these steps/tips are well-known or even intuitive, the present history of mankind and womankind speaks to the contrary. On any level of communication, from world powers to individual family or marital relationships, communication is paramount! Perhaps it is safe to say that wherever there has been violence, hatred, or wars, there has been a massive failure of communication. Conversely, wherever there is or has been peace, love, and collaboration, there has been superb communication. Though it is not quite that simple, this generally stands true does it not?
Can you communicate both organs effectively?
Then there is the wrench of deception; intended or unintended. This is an entirely different matter and deserves a separate discussion, particularly intended deception. For now, I wish to dabble, or languish depending on circumstances, in the art of interpersonal language and communication, or the lack of it. Also, I have observed an unspoken hierarchy present in human interaction of which I have personally broken them down into these six following hierarchies. I’m very curious; how would YOU define them in the context of “authentic” impactful communication?
Expressing one’s self to others requires understanding one’s self accurately. If you do not understand why you feel or think a certain way, or in a context how you’ve come to feel or think a certain way, then how can you accurately express it? Language and words express as much emotion as they do fact, sometimes one more than the other. How well do your words match your emotions? Better yet, how well do they match your actions or behavior? What is meant when people say “Actions speak louder than words”?
There seems to me to be a pure art of communication and language, and that purity is mysteriously hard to find sometimes not just in others, but within ourselves too. I love being around elementary kids because they still have that blatant innocence to express exactly what they think and feel that we sometimes don’t find among adults. In a group of strangers or acquaintances where little children are present, why do the adults so often invest their attention onto the children instead of the adults? I find this social condition…
…obtuse.
I am puzzled by this blurry condition of artful candid communication today so to understand…
I wonder if it might be because as we “mature” we become more sensitive to the way others perceive us. In potential romantic relationships – for that matter even certain long-term relationships – do we sacrifice authenticity to be more loved? And if that is the case, then isn’t that living an illusion? Is it because of a fear of rejection that we do not communicate authentically but in diluted forms in order to be served in some way?
I would very much like to hear any and all feedback on the condition of modern communication; modern verbal communication in interpersonal relationships particularly. How do you find the art of interpersonal communication? From the 6 hierarchies above, is it right or wrong to authentically communicate another’s ‘status’ or ‘ranking’ in your heart?
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This work by Professor Taboo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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As part of the Alternative Lifestyles blog-posts migration over to the new blog The Professor’s Lifestyles Memoirs, this post has been moved there. To read this post please click the link to the blog.
Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!
Remember the old patina-ridden maps of the world from the Age of Exploration where the outer-limits of the seas had sailor-eating dragons? As a boy I was fascinated with their ferociousness and perplexed by their purpose. What did those evil serpents really look like if they devoured all hands on deck? Where are the few survivors? I demand to interview them if they haven’t already gone mad in some insane asylum! Imagine the fear they must have endured. My imagination forced me to squeeze my thighs together so I wouldn’t piss my pants picturing their last minutes of life! What unbelievable courage those explorers must have had…or stupidity.
Many decades later, journeys accumulated, and through my graduated intelligence I deduced that those poor victims of dragon-breath were now simply bones and dust – or fossilized dragon feces. A couple of light-bulbs above the head and years later, those maps gained new meaning.
I have traveled to and experienced many cultures on four different continents. I have been to places where the meaning of life resembles nothing like what surrounded me growing up. The many nuances of their daily lives are as familiar to me today as they were then and I thank the gods of seafaring and wing-tips I am alive and changed. But I have missed something. Something was not on the map.
I am a detailer. No not an auto-detailer and no, I have no homicidal tendencies toward tailors. I have been a detailing observer and explorer, and I have always been a cerebral observer and explorer; sometimes anal about the details. Get your mind out of the gutter for a moment; that is another blog for another time. Or better yet, go rent yourself a porn video if you can’t keep-up with me here. Refocus!
I think the title I am searching for is neo-cartographer. I have explored many places on this planet. My Captain’s Log would record not only the longitude latitude bearings, but also something significant to read about the people and their magnificent homes. Still…something was missing. I am a stickler for detail. Were my maps incomplete? Were they out dated? What?
I get a hint.
It was right under my nose. No, that is completely wrong! A great cartographer would slap me across my short-sighted face for saying that! Remarkably, my incomplete map with unimaginable treasures and deadly creatures had never really been so unreachable. Mad at myself I asked, How could you be so blind?
My beautifully created maps were missing dragons. Everywhere I had gone and everywhere I had detailed were missing the man-eating dragons! It seemed the further I would travel, fewer dragons existed. But I have yet to reach three more continents. What if I went to the continent of Asia? Would I find the dragons there? Yes, but I’ve been told they are woven into their fine silk. What if I went to Australia? Would I find them there? As it turns out, I’ve been told they have kangaroos and koala bears. Antarctica? Nope: penguins.
This enlightenment begs the question: Where are the homicide-crazed dragons?
Ah hah! Another hint.
I have a distinct class of maps stored in a cabinet labeled “Domestic”. Excited I rummage through these stacks of maps; between 50 and 60 small, two large, and two of them as big as a 12-place dinner table. On these maps are the faces and memories of all the women I have intimately shared myself and loved. I rediscover some most profound joy and passion, and some hurt and disappointment.
The small maps dominate the shelves. No matter how well I tried to rig the outgoing vessel, no “crew” or co-captain would sign on. The maps are black and white, and very much incomplete. The two large maps have more detail, more emotions, and an array of colors, both with two distinct gold-bands tossed overboard in stormy seas. One map has a newborn boy I thought to become my first-mate, but as the tale goes he belonged to another fleet of sorts. The other vivid map has even more detail, more colors, deeper emotions, and more stormy seas. Yet this particular map, unlike the previous, has more navigational points necessary to make future explorations less hazardous. Mmm, frame this one. My two beautiful children are on it.
But as I examined the two massive maps, I realized I was not going to find any flesh-eating dragons I had been so anxiously seeking. I am hunting in the wrong place. I rolled the maps back up. My search for the beasts was over. Gone were my adolescent fears. Peacefully and with gratitude I returned every single map into my Domestic armoire. Close doors, leave key, do not lock.
I have charted many rough, calm, beautiful, gloomy seas, and met a wide scope of explorers and settlers. Since 1989 I have been in the alternative lifestyles and with them come all types of explorers from all walks of life and orientations. Before ‘89, I was ten years in the vanilla or monogamous lifestyle with a later short, disastrous 4-year return to vanilla-monogamy in marriage then divorce with kids. I was raised and taught my first 26 years under the venerable roof of monogamy by my biological parents. Dignity, honor, and loyalty were three mainstays in my home. However, for the last 13 years I have not lived an ordinary life; everything but. Why?
One perspective from only the shore
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” Emerson and I would have been shipmates. Emerson had no fear of dragons because they exist in only one place: in our minds. They are creatures who feast on human will-power. They survive and flourish only when we accept their flames of “It cannot be done…it is not so.”
This is never more present than in our intimate romantic relationships. Fear of self-examination and fear of discovering our flaws, as well as our brilliance, disempower our ability to love more, love deeper, and more importantly to love several soul mates throughout life. Those disempowering dragons exist there, not on maps or out in the world.
When there is no proactive communication between lovers, here be the dragons. When there is attraction to another outside the union or relationship and there are no attempts to understand why, here be the dragons. When there is disproportionate extrospection to introspection, here be the dragons. When there is no articulation as to why monogamy may or may not work in a relationship, here be the dragons. When there is no desire to understand something unconventional, here be the dragons. When there is no patient, forgiving, and non-judgmental discussion about “uncharted seas” and embracing human imperfection as well as brilliance, here be the dragons!
The irony of my personal tale is this: in my quest to discover all things living around me and beyond, feeding my near insatiable curiosity, once on-guard to those damn elusive dragons…I have produced a worldly Captain, a rather large cartographical library, and an exceptionally fine-tuned HDD – Human Dragon-Detector – that can wale the warning…
There have been two or three horrific dragons that I have fought in my lifetime. Some of them I created, others sent to me. The most painful dragon was also the one that had an evil twin with my name on it. For whatever reason the dragon-of-infidelity menaced me for twenty-two exhausting years, begun by my father’s suicide; another “map” I will share in a later post.
Is there anyone out there, male or female, that knows of what dragons I speak? How far have you traveled inward as well as outward? Where did you find the dragons? Are they vanquished?
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“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
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∼ ∼ ∼ ∼ ∼ ∼ ∼ ∼
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I was contacted over the last several months by a few old, intimate friends, some of which were ex-girlfriends. I considered these now defunct dating relationships (and still do) to be quite significant to my life whether past or present. Now they have disappeared into that mysterious lost world of attachment, again. If history holds true, I should not hear from them again for another ten or twelve months or more, or perhaps never again. Why is that?
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I suppose the freedom and pursuit of happiness and meaningful experience in all of our human interactions is in these cases just too risky an endeavor within the subtle framework of traditional attachment. These situations sadden me to be honest because it was they who missed me and contacted me after so long. I find this curious and perplexing… and so I write.
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I did not graduate from elementary and junior high school by passing one subject. I did not graduate from high school or college by passing one subject. As obvious as those implications might seem, why did we all take so many various subjects throughout our educations? What did it benefit us? Why was it required to pass many subjects? Could we not have functioned or succeeded in life just as well with only one single subject of study? Of course not, so why should our relationships/friendships be any different?
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Allow me to put this analogy in another perspective. How about your teachers or your classmates? Would it be considered well and fine if they forbid you to study any other subject but their own? Or what about the not so ancient business of human slavery? Isn’t it fine and well to own slaves to benefit the personal well-being of the owner? Of course not, so why should our relationships/friendships be any different?
Yet, too often I discover this curious, perplexing attachment in relationships today. One subject and one subject only… and it seems to be either chosen or enforced, verbally or non-verbally, in action or by passiveness. Very reminiscent of ages and civilizations gone when proprietary rights ruled in all aspects of life and home.
Edgar Cayce believed, as I believe, that soul mates (i.e. persons in our life that through interaction we become acutely aware of our shortcomings and our abilities) were to be embraced…forever.
“Soul mates (not one but many) are individuals that are not our full compliment or other half that makes us complete, but rather in being with those individuals we are provided with an impetus to become whole ourselves AND to offer the same to them.”
Fullfillment, happiness, problems or obstacles are all presented in the relationships/friendships for a purpose:
“they are infinite opportunities of invaluable assistance to mature mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Soul mates are not to be feared by a partner, but on the contrary should be encouraged by both to grow as they may.”
How well do you live freely? How well do you love freely? How deeply and how freely are YOU loved…and how freely is it given?
“…When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.“
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