Communication
Before I travelled to China, I had always been intrigued by the Chinese language. I was intrigued because so many people said it was impossible to learn. I was always doubtful and wanted to prove everyone wrong. Now I’ve learned Chinese, and in the course of learning I’ve realized that the more intriguing thing isn’t the difficulty of languages, but the subtleties of communication; especially communication across cultures.
Communication is an essential skill. Without communication there is no hope for personal or world peace. Personal peace relies on our ability to share our experiences with others. World peace is simply an extension of the “shared experience” principle. We can’t hope to get along with others if we cannot communicate our experiences and perspectives with each other. Even worse, we can’t hope to grow in experience without communication because we would be forced to live out all experiences individually rather than build on the experience of others. It is the dream of people everywhere to achieve communication by direct connection of the mind. In the absence of such a development, we must learn to communicate as best as we can, at least for our own personal happiness.
When most people speak about communication, they speak about the ability to “talk to anyone” and communication skills. Some people seem to believe that there is a set of communication skills that only some people possess, and they all have to do with being comfortable talking. This isn’t the type of communication I believe is important to learn. Being able to talk is only a small part of communication. I’m sure you’ve met plenty of people who can talk all day and not communicate anything. To my mind there are at least 4 ways to communicate, here are some:
Speech
Writing
Listening
Manners
Each of these is extremely important in one setting or another. People of speech are needed in diplomacy (sharing experience for persuasion). People with writing skill are needed in history (sharing experience for societal benefit). People with listening skill are needed in counsel (sharing experience for personal benefit). And people with skill in physical communication are needed for intimate communication (sharing emotional experience, wordless experience).
I believe learning to do each of these has value, but it is enough to learn to do at least one of these extremely well. If you learn how to speak extremely well, you can be the voice for people of similar experience. If you learn to listen, you can be the counsel of people with different experience. If you learn to write, you can expose the
experience of all objectively. If you learn to communicate with your body, you can bring people together who all share the same human experience. Those who are able to learn all of these will become the leaders of all people.
The importance of learning to communicate is magnified in the modern day simply because so many people of dramatically different backgrounds have been exposed to each other in a historically short period of time.
Communication is the key to living with each other and for each other. Alone we can do nothing, and the only way that we can associate with each other is by communication. Learn to do one type of communication well, if possible two. Sometimes the most effective communication is simple: laughter.
Luis
8.26.07
