Friday, April 11, 2014

ROOTS 10 – THE COMMUNICATION

Motto:
' We are sinking, we are sinking!!! '
' What are you thinking about?... '
(For proper understanding, this needs some visual effects - you can find them here)


Brain waves. Hugs. Signs.
Words. Music. Dance. Sculpture. Painting. Building. Flying.
Papirus. Paper. Morse. Feather. Coal. Chalk. Pen. Keyboard. Touch screen.
Radio.Tv. Computer. Phone.
Theatre. Opera. Multiplex.
Pigeon. Horse. Post. Courier. Internet. Email. Call. Sms. Chat.
Evolution or involution? Curse or blessing?
Fear or desire? Irony or smile? Tear or laughter?
Love or hate? Acceptance or rejection? Hurt or embrace? Anticipation or avoidance?
Honesty or deceit? Reality or dream?
Photo or paint? Live or unplugged?
Eloquent or ambiguous? Intimate or public? Gentle or aggressive?
Build or destroy? Divide or join? Break or conquer?
Manipulate or convince? Seek or avoid? Share or hide?
Give or take? Endorse or disclaim?
Listen or hear? Watch or see? Say or insinuate?
Loud or whispery? Stereo or surround?
Read or heard? Seen or imagined?
Flat or curved? Colored or b&w? Sepia?...
Touch. Hold. Hug. Kiss. Weep. Smile. Frown. Laugh. Blink.
Speak. Feel. Smell. Hear. Taste.
Morning. Lunch. Afternoon. Evening. Night. Late at night. Early morning.
Clock. Tick-tack.
Life.
Over and out.


By now I have already communicated to you more than in all the other nine roots put together. This would be true in case you have been reading properly each line and everything lying between and behind those lines. If you haven't, I invite you to slooowly read them again.

Did you find different meanings? Did you imagine different scenes and different persons on the second reading?

That could be triggered by the common while abstract nature of those words. We go through life convinced that we listen, understand and react. Actually we may very well spend most of our life imagining, translating and acting on what we think we know.

Why do I believe that current communication pattern has become one of the deepest roots of the current status of our world? One reason could be that we started to take too many things for granted. We got used to so much communication, on so many levels and coming to us in so many packages that we are gradually turning off old-fashioned communication, the one occurring on a basic intuitive level. We (ab)use surrogate communication so much that we are gradually convinced that we know it all. We get carried away by online presence of hundreds of remote friends, adrenaline rush of movie characters, news about public persons, accomplishments of sportsmen and emotions of artists, most of them happening on a flat cold computer or television screen, while we are comfortably snoozing on our couch. We are nicely fitting in pre-packed life stories and consume the enormous supply of communication which is being fed to us. Quantity seems to have won the war over quality and is now taking heads-on another challenge: our time.

Some of us even got used to the idea that robots and people have daily access to our communication and don't even bother about it anymore. A handful is fighting to win back the right to intimacy, but the 007 Genie is out of the bottle for a long time on a planetary scale. One can only hope that the paranoia of supervised communication may actually have positive consequences, such as bringing back into our life the communication channel which matters the most: eye to eye. One can dream that someday we will go back to using all our given senses at the same time (including common sense!) and therefore minimize as much as possible misunderstandings.

I wonder what else is to be said as a closing note. I believe at this point it would be better just to challenge you to remember any classic French movie, so you can draw your own conclusions. When I was young I used to hate the fact that those movies had no ending. Today I would just smile, turn off the tv and move on. 

I have learned that one should not seek answers to all life questions. Some things, facts and people are just there for a reason which will reveal itself much later in the process. There are events which just happen - for apparently no reason. Asking for answers and looking for endings in advance just leads to misunderstanding of much bigger pictures.


Georgina Popescu