Communication

The first “hack” I bring into topic, is a revamp of general sharing of information.

Communication is a skill developed by many living beings. As of today, the human race is the virtuoso of communication methods, creating visual, sound and synesthesical systems which eventually led to the creation of languages. Examples of the fantastic and complex languages created by humans are:

-Drawing

-Letters

-Numbers

-Music

-Mimic

The extensive number of different languages and languages created cultural niches, and at the same time, cultural barriers, culminating into different communities of humans, with different communication methods, different costumes and habits, leading ultimately to our “globalized” present time.

And, how does our methods of communication, extensively complex and efficient, fare today? Our present time, where we're constantly showered with information through many mediatic vehicles, where the simple act of looking is constantly busy, and where we ourselves throw huge quantities of information into the environment.

Is it efficient??

After answering myself, in a flash reaction, my skull computer processed that little awesome code. Then I suddenly remembered about Semiotics. According to this remarkable science, for communication to occur, the following 3 things need to (co)exist:

A speaker or mediator - The information itself - A receiver or listener

I put here in a very crude and resumed way of explaining, but it's obvious and easy to understand. Having those 3 things together is the common ground of communication. Assigning a problem to such wide concepts won't give me any clues for this conundrum. So, where lies the inefficiency of communication? Is it too much method availability? Is it too much deceiving? Is it too much different people? Is it everything?

Is it... me?

Like a tenacious Buddhist (where the fault always lies within myself), the little code started to question everything. After re-reading about Semiotics and all the main branches of language studies, soon enough, I tried to break down to the simplest form all capabilities of generating and passing information. In my apparently(surely) procrastinating mind, 3 simple words appeared.

Thoughts, Words, Actions.

And, suddenly, the volatile element was clear as Chloromethane!

Thoughts are generated into your mind based on your experience and knowledge acquiring. Since thoughts tend remain into your head (lexically, at least), they are not subject to deception, due to incomplete communication. Actions are part of a full semiotic cycle. Regardless of their nature. they can be (re)traced, and misunderstanding and misguiding are very possible, but the uncovering can happen much faster.

So, the problem lies on words, or, speech, if you prefer a down-to-earth, realistic bullshit pointing word. The spoken, written, declared or even sung words are, credibility-wise the most volatile, free-flowing piece of information. And, in this highly competitive, wild and ruthless world, one may just wonder that a level of deception might occur.

If you think of how words work for us, in terms of survival (our main code), they can be used as advantage, by controlling the true nature of a thought, or an action(or happening). It's a helpful 2-way tool, efficient for “good” and for “bad” motives. This seems very similar to something used a lot today for profit, called:

Marketing.

This rain of apparent obvious thoughts was pouring on the plains of my ravaged cortex. And it was an awesome thing, comparing propaganda with common spoken gestures, analyzing the nature of some constructed phrases and (awkward) situations, re-realizing that accuracy of information is not a primary requirement, and that the receivers of information would have a hard time trying to figure out all of these s....

Wait...

That got me thinking about the listener as well, which is not a lifeless sponge of data. Quickly, I broke the listening of info in few stages, just like the mediators:

Listening, Pondering, Judgement.

Those 3 words have a certain correlation with the mediator's 3 words. But, in the listener's case the most problematic element is judgement. For listeners, especially ones who know about the nature of words and marketing, the phase of pondering gets careless (due to lifelong experience) and judgement becomes an almost unchangeable entity. When dealing with lies, deception, malice and other confidence-destroying terms (main subjects of future posts), judgement acts as a shield-bearer for the listener, standing tall and firm, very close to intolerance and pride.

It's no wonder listeners become skeptical towards bullshit, and it's no surprise speakers tend to buy confidence with actions, instead of words. And since everyone are speakers and listeners at all times semiotic warfare is rampant and seems remotely prone to change. Unless...

We hack our brains!

No absolutist and romanticist behavior like “Thou shalt not lie” or “Never trust anyone” is needed.

My proposal is simple, but is not something common to do. Some mental training might be required to get it right.

“Make the meaning of words lighter”

“Volatilize the semantics”

Or, simply

“Don't take things too personally”

It seems awfully simple and unrealistic, but tell me:

How many of you feel offended by certain words?

How many of you feel happy by certain comments?

How many of you feel trusted by certain displays of respect or affection?

Everyone, right?

So, there lies the constant! The constant that makes smart mediators control people's feelings and even actions. The constant that makes stubborn listeners act like complete assholes to protect themselves. Quick judgement, based on experience of growth and insufficient pondering! 

In order to defend our character from the beasts known as (goddamn) humans, we learn to identify and judge everything that brings our spirits up and down, for our own sanity and steadiness of mind. A.K.A: growing up. So, due to confidence, created by past experiences, the process of pondering becomes almost nonexistent, just like when we face obvious statements! A fountain of opportunity for people with good command of languages.

By pondering first the nature of a statement (thinking before buying, literally), one may not need to go overboard reaction-wise, if he grasps the intent of the mediator. The intent is a shard of the might be concealed truth (and most of the time, our brains have the ability to shape the whole thing). Trying to identify it, without losing focus to offensive or praising remarks is the best way to learn good language and communication skills, and thus effectively hacking your brain (who usually is on dog or cat mode, facing certain statements).

Basically this allows you to “play chess” with information. To read moves before they are played. To avoid confrontation and raise self and mutual awareness. To understand subtle messages. To lose the need to threat or deceive. To judge words or propaganda correctly, based on their intent and not their literality, To respect everyone. To have true self-confidence.

That, my friends, help me all the time with everything I think, speak, do, listen, ponder and judge!

For a practical example, I ask you to read the text again, now with this method on mind. Just try, and remember to use the little question a lot.

Some little hints: try to guess if the use of the word “language” on the 2^nd paragraph was a typo or not. Or why did I never actually wrote “three”. Or even why did I used italic for a certain word every time it repeated.

And lastly...

Try to figure out how did I answer the question in the first part of the text. :)

A (Not Quite) Small Story

-All living things die.

-Survival is the modus operandi of life.

-Living beings are “programmed” to perform many things in order to survive.

The three affirmatives above are three solid truths. The kind of statement we don't ponder about its veracity. With the evolution of life, species were subject to risks and rewards which determined their remaining biological time. Throughout time and experience, many of those “programmed” acts of survival were put to test, abandoned or taught, regarding their efficiency on the matter of life's main code, and thus defining one as “fit”(Survival of the...) .

When the Homo sapiens sapiens appeared, the models came in with several fantastic tools derived from its ancestors, like the opposable thumb and a very virtuosistic bipedalism. But, the single most amazing feature of the Homo genus current extant species was:

The ability of asking “Why?”.

?

This, made every shard of history and culture and human life as we know possible. This innocent question is the proof of the evolution of our neural motherboards. This small line of code, which can be used for fueling great problem-solving, perceiving humongous aspects of life and even occasional pestering (notably used by youngsters), is what makes us the current most evolved species on Earth.

By being the pinnacle of evolution on our planet, survival now is easier to achieve, even being frail lifeforms compared to other beings. Which makes us essentially successful nerds of the ecosystem school. “Running for our lives” is now a code line seldom used by humans, because our cranial computers figured out ways of dealing with the bigger bullies, who can kill and eat us easily. How? By asking “Why?”, of course!

So, being on this position, where only some ailments and ourselves (the disgruntled ones) are the biggest threat of human life in general, we became quite relaxed, sitting amidst concrete forests, watching technology and quality of life evolve and effectively enhancing our survival chances and lifetime. All of that while complaining and hashtagging the shit out of everything...

Suddenly, that amazing small question didn't provide anymore willpower to those who asked it. Slowly, it became the base of human lamentation. More and more people were driven to grieve and less and less people were hungry for knowing. (Why?)

Which (finally) brings us to my point.

.

Today, humans are forgetting to ask “Why?”. Not in the lamenting way, which we can see and read extensively on any social media, but truly asking in search of simple or complex answers, or even more questions. The whole point of what I am writing here is that this lack of questioning is even bigger regarding ourselves individually. We are living in several turmoils of different magnitudes, and “stopping to think”, is something most people seldom practice, or plainly don't do it anymore.

What I am proposing to share here, are suggestions on how to understand better yourself, and everyone else, by using this superb piece of code (Questioning and Reasoning 2.0b). It is not an easy task for anyone, especially adults, to ponder about themselves without breaking the already fragile self-confidence of most people today. Humankind was showered with Romanticism and time consuming work and technology over the last couple of centuries, which basically gave us unreachable ideals and long periods of lamentation. That, coupled with competition and savagery, two other efficient codelines of survival, shape the world we know and despise (over the internet) today.

A long time of very few threats to humankind and thus, the practice of not questioning some of our values, opinions, habits and patterns, makes our insatiable thirst of quick resolution and knowledge pursuit something highly dependable on others. And we become stuck with the only effective way of getting anything, from attention to valuable stuff. We “cry”, like babies, waiting for the mercy of our parents, or anyone. And adults of our current world are leading experts of reshaping the code of crying and even manipulating real or “aspiring” parents.

So, throughout the next postings, I will try to expose many of our patterns of living and incite the questioning of those same values. Most will feel obvious to the reader, and by feeling this I can declare some sucess, since “thinking the obvious is not worth questioning” is one of those dreaded constants of the brain. And we're here to hack it!

I truly hope this can be of help to someone, like it was for me. Again, it is not a easy and quick process. It's a self-journey of discovery one can simply achieve by changing little habits, like an update to our OS, or a full mapping of our systems, or maybe even... Evolution!

Thank you, for lending me your eyes and your time.

Again, with utmost care,

Gustavo

A Different Proposal

Hello all,

This is a blog that provides suggestions. Suggestions for us, humans, to live and to coexist with each other, while possessing the greatest organic machine ever created. Our human brain.

Similar to any man-made machine, our brain works with certain patterns, created by some(lots of) thousands of years of history and culture shaping. And today understanding these patterns is a very subtle thing, while living such turbulent lives. I bring here some of my personal experience dealing with our “coding”, and some suggestions on how to know, understand, deal and even exploit them (hence, hacking!).

By being a professional musician, and having somewhat good language command, one can perceive what works better in social relations and simple exchange of information, since music is all about pleasing your audience(regardless of reward) with a different “language”. As an world folk song researcher and a operatic singer in the start of the career, I had many different types of contact, and many memorable experiences. So I wished to share this with everyone.

The objective of this page is not to cure the world of its social diseases or stupid assholes, or whatever derogatory term used for our society and society members today. In fact, this “romantic” view of things is something we should ponder and try to depend less on it. Maybe this is subject worth “hacking”.

Again, this is a place that provides suggestions, mainly for the ones who feel the need of a change, and who can bet on this change starting from the most effective place: Their own, knowledge-hungry minds.

With utmost care,