I used to grow so angry at people when told I need to say what I mean. I would be told what words would be better so others would know what I meant. I never could understand why I had to use their words, their phrases when, to me, the words and phrases I used conveyed what I meant to say much better.
To every action there is a reaction. When my doctor told me to take a drug and reassured me there are no side effects, I instantly branded the doctor a liar. I was so upset because I had learned to trust this doctor and felt betrayed. I wondered why the doctor looked so happy when saying this until I realized, side effects had a different meaning for me than to this doctor. This is a great breakthru realization for me. I realized I was always using the right words to me, I was saying what I was meaning, it was how the other person interpreted my words that caused so much confusion and distress and upset.
Now that I understand I still will use my words but ask when misunderstood, what does the other person think I meant by what I said. I need to be clear about how others interpret the same word as it’s obvious to me the same word does have many different meanings.
I do speak English and English is my only language. It’s how I interpret English that caused me so many problems and so much heartache.
I can now trust the doctor again. I realize the doctor has no idea what side effects I am talking about. We live on the same planet, speak the same language, but interpret the words so differently. I see it as being on the same wavelength but tuned to a different channel.
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2 comments:
Good post. I can really relate to this one as I have had the same sort of experience around communication problems myself.
acorn,
I want to post a comment because it was so interesting to see that what you are talking about in this post looks so much like a topic I am occupied with lately. Which is, the meaning of words.
My topic that I am thinking of and being a bit concerned with and such lately is that, I think being a social animal so to speak, as humans are, truth is often defined by the group, as opposed to let's say the semantic and actual meaning of a word.
My suspicion is that humans are far less intellectual and much more animal, if I can put it like that to illustrate the difference I am thinking of, than is commonly perceived. In my opinion, we often use words based on an entirely different grounds than any "analytical" perception of the semantic meaning of the word.
I tried to explain this thought to someone, and I think it was then that I illustrated by saying this is why people with Asperger's Syndrome have problems sometimes in communicating with other humans. As I understand it Asperger's people tend to take very literally the meaning of words. My suspicion is that humans in general like to think they themselves do, too, but the fact is -- as I think of it -- that humans are not intellectually honest or what it's called, like that, they are much more tuned to social culture and let's say animal concerns, basically un-intellectual concerns. Which is alright in a way, but the problem in this situation is that we don't admit this in our culture, and the result is that we are lying to ourselves about how we function.
Lying to ourselves about how we function intellectually and mentally and so on has a lot of very big consequences if one looks at it, no matter in which direction.
For example, I read the other day an article saying that some survey had found that 60% (or something) of the population in the UK I think it was, break the law. To me that is an illustration of the falseness and pretense about our, as humans, relationship to intellectual and verbal declarations.
Sorry if this seemed a bit rambling. Anyway, I think your post was very interesting because, like I said, it seems very much like something I myself am interested in lately.
Regards,
antaraaya
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