Language Is More Than Just Words
What we write is only 10% of the whole story. The rest is what makes us truly human.
To write from the heart can put certain people off.
Some may take your straightforwardness as some form of provocation, while others may paint you as being overly sentimental. In truth, while it’s hard to put it into practise, there is one thing that is even more difficult — if not painful — to do: speaking from the heart.
Vulnerability is painful. It is awkward. It is uncommon.
Uncommon in the sense that the level of vulnerability implicitly allowed between individuals varies from culture to culture. That is, if you wish to eliminate awkward conversations from your daily existence, you have to be able to carry yourself from one level of vulnerability to another. Doing this without fail in multiple social settings means that you are socially acceptable, even socially desired. What this doesn’t tell you is how many steps it takes to get there. No one tells you how taxing it is to survive a social interaction. It’s as if we take sociability for granted.
Sociability: the capacity to be sociable.
In a world filled with stimulating images plastered on every single surface invented, the spectrum of what constitutes being sociable grows ever wider. SMS, online messaging, phone calls, video calls, email — this is real life. And yet, the technological innovations of today do not change the fact that it is still the face-to-face interactions that matter most. At the end of the day, human beings are animals.
The smell of hair, the twitch of an eyebrow, the proximity of bodies. As social animals, we need physicality, which is impossible to replicate through glass screens. To be seduced by reason and not realise the damaging effects of trusting words alone is like saying “We need to talk” but only communicating through posted letters that arrive seven months apart. Live in a country with a foreign language and you’ll begin to see the necessity of your entire body — every finger, vocal pitch, facial expression — in getting your message across without second-guessing.
The language barrier is not a stone wall. It’s a melting glacier.
Overcoming miscommunication is worth the effort. The more you speak, the more you’ll get used to navigating those bumpy waters. Writing isn’t enough. To speak from the heart takes time that many people seem to be unable to afford. But that’s not the end of the world. Navigating psychological scaffolding was never meant to be easy. If it was, then the entertainment industry would have been able to satisfy every human need. Fortunately, that isn’t the case.
Complete physicality is required for complete vulnerability. So try again. Imagine the potential gifts that could arrive once the bridge between you and someone else’s mind… story… experience… is built. Communicating is thus a creative endeavour. Very much so. That’s what we were made for.
So speak. Right from the heart.
