Journaling Miscommunication

He:  In the moonlight your teeth look like pearls!

She:  Who is Pearl and what were you doing with her in the moonlight?

Language is such a strange thing.  Language names things, people, and places. Language developed as the human race needed to clarify ideas and thoughts, feelings, facts, fictions.  All languages go through upgrade every generation.  But language is way more than words, as we know.  And it is in different arenas; language can make or break just about anything.

Face to face communication has become one of signs and symbols of the age.  Once, we had sign language that aided understanding between languages.  If I were to say which language I use, myself, I would have to say that most of my communication is done through the internet.  Even there, they have had to add emotive signs and symbols to aid in expression, and, emotion that goes with the language.  One only has to type a sentence and spell checkers swiftly decided what words or phrases it thinks you meant to use.  We have lost a great deal by having less and less face to face communication.  We have lost people, places and things due to lack of exact purposes of our language.  We have lost a great deal of our personality with the computer age.  I have noticed, more and more, how personal mores and personal non-verbal cues in our later generations that have grown up with internet and computerized sharing of language.  Being misunderstood, or missing social cues seems to be a given. 

Body language is becoming a lost art.  For instance, I have noticed, a great deal, that younger generations do not use the social cue of stepping back when finished with a conversation,;  a quiet cue that one is done talking and the other should know this.  This, along with the 'emotive mood' of a conversation seems lost.  Society of the younger generations are not being shown, modeled, and/or taught about body posture language, as well.  I have noticed that there are fewer younger generation using facial cues to go with language.  They only ones I have seen a lot of is with the eyes, which are most usually used for negative interaction to go with, or without, verbal language.  Note:  the 'burn off' look, the 'eyeroll', the widening eyes of disgust...etc.  The more facial, body, eye expressions within a conversation, with language being spoken, the more accurate one is at expressing oneself.  Consider the role of compounding meaning within spoken language and how emotions are expressed (anger, sadness, joy, threat, avoidance, disinterest) with the use of body, eye, facial cues. 

We have lost so much in communication that so easily can be read with whatever tone the reader decides is there.  My little granddaughter has picked up her father's way of conversing in that she can be curt, can use one words answers to a question that begs development of ideas for answering, and almost sounds/reads as disinterest and devaluation of the conversation at hand.  This granddaughter also has a problem with emotions as she has no gray area.  She is an interesting child and because of my background in psychology, I can read between her lines...lol.  When she does this, she is giving off a cue that she might not even understand and could become a problem later on in life as she matures.  I am hoping she finds that gray area in conversations as well.  One could easily be misunderstood if we do not have background in linguistics, psychology, and some bit of expertise in reading/listening between the lines.

When we know someone really well, a message on messenger can be misunderstood unless we know that person really well.  Even then it can happen, depending on the 'mood' that the reader might be.  So, when we are writing a message, or making a post, we have to be aware that understanding comes from whoever is reading that message and what mindset they are in a that time.  I have seen it time and time again, had it happen to me as a messenger and me as a reader.  Sometimes, and I try to be very careful with my focus, we read things in context of our understanding.  For instance, I read in an emotional, psychological bent, but forget to be aware that what I write will be taken however the reader is feeling at that moment.  When we know a person well, we can understand that what they wrote comes from their p.o.v. at that time.  In today's world, where we can be so easily offended, we may choose to define what is said in a negative or positive way.  Between friends and good acquaintances, this is huge and aids in NOT being offended because we know that person well enough to know how they might have meant something.  Once in a while, I read a post comment, and I frame that post in my own understanding, knowing, and taking a deep breath, because I can tell that someone else might take it in a negative or other way.    Sometimes it is difficult to separate one's professional understanding and making sure that we write in such a way that it is least apt to be misunderstood.

Being an artist helps with understanding because art is very much symbolic.  The art journal page for this blog post has no written language, but every circle is full of meaning, and to me, even a deeper level of meaning.  In the circles, top left to right are some of the following meanings:  there is a beautiful sunny day (a cue that this is all positive.  There are the mountains of Yuma, one of my favorite places on earth.  There is a lighthouse of Maine, the place of my heart and soul, and great loss and all a lighthouse is made for...a horn and a beam of light to bring the wandering ships back safely to shore.  There is the raven that represents fall and the ache and longing that fall brings as things die off and the sound of the raven is such a longing lonely call.  There is a character sitting below a cliff, and, none of you would know this if I did not clarify;  it represents a Medicine Man who was struggling with his life, and who I helped, and who, when healthy again, was the leader of a sweat lodge that was done for me to heal me. There is a circle with a tipi with the background of Northern Lights of the Cree  that represents ceremony in my life that truly began in the far North.  There is a stooped elderly woman who represents the Medicine Woman who gave me my first medicine bag and all that implies.  There is a circle of fire that represents 9:11 and how that changed life as we knew it.  The next circle is a pastoral scene that represents my childhood home.  There is another circle with a tipi that represents the southern tipi of the Blackfeet and place of my healing.   The next circle represents the lake in Maine were we always went boating, and notice the sunset that holds even deeper meaning.  The next circle represents after the storm and returning back to the wheat fields of home.  And finally, the last circle is about a boat, First woman's boat that brought her to her new home and symbolizes the sailing towards my next life.  Not one word:  the meanings go way deeper than the surface meaning, but it tells a story of my life. While some may enjoy looking at this because it is interesting means that they do not need words to see 'something' in the painting and asking what, where, why of it. 

In an art piece or art journal, choose something that tells you something of your story.  You can use squares or circles, or whatever you choose to act as almost chapters, were you to speak of what it all means to you.  You could simply divide a page into noen squares and fill in each;  maybe you only want to do four rectangles.  Maybe it will be a character with some background that tells a story in its symbols.  Please share what you do with us in the Facebook group.  Help inspire us all.  You can do this!  I have faith in you.

©Carol Desjarlais 9.20.19