Consciousness is constant curation.
Death is to stop thinking.
Words have unequal weight. They pivot on context, accelerate with emotion, frequently explode with meaning. Communication is rarely neutral. Difficult to sanitise. Impossible to decouple from intention. All politics begins with the politics of language. Language of manipulation, coercion, argument - why else would we communicate? I don't mean to be negative, but even messages of love and fidelity and cooperation are manipulative – just more symbiotic and less overtly parasitic.
Some words are taboo. Bringing to mind concepts that society abhors or wants to be seen to abhor. Rude words are heavier than air, they fall fast from the lips and reverberate like cymbals. Pious words rise like helium, to inflame the unwary and consume them like Hindenburg consumed its passengers.
The most innocuous small talk says "I exist. Acknowledge me." This realization elevates water cooler conversations to the lofty heights of Pascal's "I think, therefore I am." If you'd been in solitary confinement for a year, the opportunity to say "Hi, nice day" to another Human Being would be profound. Probably the most heartbreaking communication of your life.
Language is just the vanguard. The tip of the iceberg. The scout you focus on, while the camouflaged army sneaks around you. Nonverbal communication makes up 90% of your message. That's why text messages suck. They're all veneer and no substance. Voice is better, face to face – toe to toe – better still. No matter how poor you are at empathy, it's difficult to stop interpreting. Nearly impossible not to attribute meaning and intention that might never have been meant. That's how wars start. How rows kick off. How divorce proceedings initiate.
Language interprets reality. It influences the world around you. The world you inhabit is described, constrained and delimited by that inner dialogue, deep inside your mind. Whether you see glass half empty or glass half full, the will of Allah or the logical conclusion of a conspiracy theory, the hand of God or an opportunity for temptation presented by the devil. All these common and equally legitimate ways of interpreting the world – differ by language. They are differentiated by words. Circumscribed by ideas.
Ideologies are words that burrow, infest, replicate and take over. They are viral and toxic as the plague. They populate communes, raise armies, advance presidential elections, billow white smoke this way or that. These are words of subtle possession. Autonomous paradigms that take up residence in your mind and aggressively filter future perceptions. They can eat you whole in subtle ways that you'll never notice. Incite you to abomination with such skill and sensitivity that you'll find your own justifications, spout your own rhetoric, recruit – in turn – your own acolytes. Such is the power of words.
An emotive word unlocks a wealth of feelings. Reminding you of some powerful stimuli previously experienced, it taps that well of emotion, temporarily eliciting feelings of shame or arousal, hatred or loyalty. These words are manipulative. Hearing them physically alters your brain. Adrenaline, serotonin and a whole toxicology of neurological transmitters flood the wetwear that hosts your mind. When your reaction is sufficiently strong and sustained, the shape of your brain changes. Neuroplasticity alters synaptic pathways to accommodate new ways of thinking. A word, an utterance, an idea communicated through simple language alters You. If a person could be accurately defined at a point in time, simple communication would be seen to exert a measurable difference. Tracing the continuous formation of a new person. We are a social Beings. The flux of our identity constantly being redefined by interaction. We ARE language.
The mind is nothing but memories. It's our only storage mechanism. Hopes and plans are future memories. Imagination is crazy memories. Recollection is more about the memories we want to have experienced, than any factual representation of the past. Dreams are a glimpse of the Meta Language. Fractal memories used to link memories that are used to link memories. As information-dense as a hologram. Nothing is 'stored', everything is recreated on demand. Consciousness is constant curation.
Language is memories shared. Identity displayed / identity altered. We tickertape our thoughts outwards when we speak and we punchcard alterations inwards when we hear. Listen to the language around you. Analyse the never ceasing word-cloud that fizzles in every brain and spills over and sloshes about like torrential rain. Don't differentiate between your internal dialogue and what is said to you and what you overhear; how much is designed to alter behaviour? Do this, Don't do that, Have that report on my desk by Friday, Do you want fries with that? What are you wearing? Can you believe what she said? Do you want to stay over? It's a ceaseless onslaught of micro refinements. Endless identity tweaking. Minds in flow. Minds that cannot be fully defined by shape, but better represented as areas of probability – like particles in spin.
Death is to stop thinking. When the language stills – we die. When the constant refinement of identity halts, we cease to exist. Like sharks have to move through water, we have to speak our mind. We have to say our name. We have to influence and be influenced. Society is a series of suspensions shaped by the flow of the whole. Each suspension plumped or etiolated, blunted or elongated depending on their degree of malleability under the prevailing circumstances. That's how we go to war, broker peace, lead innovation, walk on the moon. Cometh the hour, cometh the woman. For any large enough group under pressure, someone will emerge to seize the situation. Someone to translate the mood of the many into decisive actions by a few. Charisma is just the glow from a reflective mind – one that intuits and replicates the minds around it. A Churchill, a Hitler, a Gandhi, a Mao, a Stalin – now it's your turn.
You must learn these new thoughts, this new way of thinking, and you must lead others – just as I lead you. Change your mind, to change the minds of others. Reach in to reach out. Explore your own heart of darkness to blaze a trail for those who follow. Know yourself.
C.A.Hill
Profoundly silly.
Originally published at www.TrustGenaro.com
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