Messengers are all around us. Everyday we come in contact with people in different environments who say different things. Words carry special resonance and can hit deep parts of our awareness. If we are truly listening, we might hear something that is only for us to hear. Prophets of the past were called messengers but did people really get the message? Most people surrender blindly to pieces of information without questioning the source and the context. Countries have been lost and businesses dissolved because of miscommunicated and misunderstood words. We spend years in school learning through words but how many of us can skillfully use them in real situations to create change and leave long lasting impressions?
Words can uplift and inspire us towards difficult goals and words can send us down the rabbit hole of doubt and despair. Once words start to hit you harder, you are a little bit more awake. Being awake means becoming aware of the power and affect of your words, and using them with more caution and care. Children are careless with their words and that’s why we don’t always take them seriously. A lot of adults are still lost children who haven’t learned the power of written and spoken words.
How many of us take action after hearing or reading the right words. We give and take instruction through words. Those with the last word are often the ones who have control and the ability to drive people towards ideas and objectives. So in essence, all of us are messengers repeating different messages to ourselves and others. Out of all those messages, how many really get through?
“The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding” —Three Initiates”
The first verse of John in the Bible reads, “In the beginning was the Word…” and during Muhammad’s first revelation on Jabal an-Nour, the first Quranic word unveiled to him was “اقْرَأْ — Read!” Today, if you can’t read with precision, you will not know what’s happening on your news and Twitter feed. Maybe tomorrow, if you can’t read code, you will be digitally illiterate. And it has always been true that if you can’t read between the lines, you will not understand the deeper levels of the conversation. What conversations is the seen and unseen world having that you’re not aware of?
Bulwer-Lytton famously said, the pen is mightier than the sword. Had he known about the internet connected keyboard, he would have retracted his statement. With a few swift keystrokes, privileged admins wield unprecedented power. The water and electricty grids, telecommunication networks, stock markets, nuclear weapons, and land/air/data traffic can all be manipulated and controlled by the keyboard. Algorithms govern the flow of information, trade, and human behavior. If we become more aware of our internal mental algorithms, we would be less swayed by foreign influence coming through communication networks.
We communicate by:
- Feeling an emotion or thinking of an idea.
- Encoding it into an organized sentence according to our language level and intellectual ability. If we have strong empathy, also in a way that the other person will better understand.
- Transmitting the sentence verbally through sound vibration. Our speech has to cut across all the noise that is sharing the airwaves with our voice.
- Receiver decodes our sentence and tries to verify it by matching it with our tone, body language, eye contact quality, and choice of words.
- Receiver responds (repeat step 1).
Word choices (unless rehearsed with deliberation) can be very revealing about the speaker. That’s why people who don’t have anything nice to say hold their tongues until they feel it is safe to speak negatively. Those detached from what they’re saying are living half-lives and any truths they speak are but half truths. On the other hand, positive words (especially from leaders) can empower individuals and unite groups. Whether we are aware of it or not, how we use words effects the outcome of most of our life situations.
“And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.” —Kahlil Gibran
The power of words is more important today than ever before in human history. We spend a considerable amount of time online leaving digital footprints all over the internet. It is very hard to delete things once said online, and most likely the things you have said on the internet will outlive you. People would speak less recklessly from behind a screen if everything they wrote was available on an interactive tombstone. Maybe an AI can weigh out the positive and negative things you say, and give you a digital code of conduct score. That might be what some people need to shift their consciousness.
Words, as powerful as they are, are still limited because they are labels for ideas, emotions and objects. Labels do not wholly represent complex situations, abstract thought, human emotion and deeper meaning.
Own your words and always be a truthful messenger.
References:
Letters to a Young Poet
by Rainer Maria Rilke. . . I cannot go into the nature of your verses, for any critical intention is too remote from me. There is nothing less apt to touch a work of art than critical words: all we end up with there is more or less felicitous misunderstandings. Things are not all as graspable and sayable as on the whole we are led to believe; most events are unsayable, occur in a space that no word has ever penetrated, and most unsayable of all are works of art, mysterious existences whose life endures alongside ours, which passes away . . .
The Prophet
by Kahlil GibranOn Talking
And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking.
And he answered, saying:You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more.
Program Or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age
by Douglas RushkoffVI. IDENTITY
Be Yourself
Our digital experiences are out-of body. This biases us towards depersonalized behavior in an environment where one’s identity can be a liability. But the more anonymously we engage with others, the less we experience the human repercussions of what we say and do. By resisting the temptation to engage from the apparent safety of anonymity, we remain accountable and present—and much more likely to bring our humanity with us into the digital realm.
When signing onto the WELL, an early, dial-in digital bulletin board based in the Bay Area, participants were welcomed with the statement: You Own Your Own Words. To most people, this meant a confirmation of copyright—that everything we posted on the bulletin board belonged to us, and couldn’t be published by someone else without permission. To others, including me, You Own Your Own Words served as an ethical foundation: You, the human being on the other side of the modem, are responsible for what you say and do here. You are accountable . . .
