I want to talk about communication

Because it's a big thing

You might even say communication is everything

How does the message get from A to B?

And what makes us want to hear the message?

• Communication determines what information goes forward and gets spread.

• Communication determines what we think about, it determines what our minds become.

• Communication determines social standing, whom we trust and whom we disregard.

In the information age communication is a multi-dimensional skill

I am going to break this huge topic down into a few specific parts - and just cover those parts. Otherwise I risk not really getting to the bottom of anything.

stock photos can be beautifully absurd

Each in our own little world

During this strange journey called life, you may have had the exprience once or twice of realising that you have a completely different view on a situation to someone else. It could be a friend or a lover, it could be a colleague or an enemy. It could be a stranger.

It doesn't matter who, what matters is that we have this experience of a difference in opinion to someone else. This is a crucial point. It's a human phenomenon that we are still coming to terms with. It is the idea of "this is how I see things, and this is how you see things" (we see things differently).

The basic human tendency is to act protectively about our internal story of how things work. This being the case for all of the humans involved in a situation or a relationship. For example an apple sitting on the side of the road could mean so many things to different passer-bys. One person sees it as a good omen, another finds a free meal, then another person sees the wastefulness and disorganization of the society. There can be all kinds of associations based on memory and experience, some of it is just random - these things inform our 'opinion'.

So we have billions of these humans each with their own opinion about how things work and what is right

From this crazy mess uncountable conversations are spawned - as we try to find someone to agree with our highly specific stories about how things work. This is communication.

Because it feels good when someone 'gets' you. It feels good when we get to say our piece and then have some sense of agreement - like that story I have been cycling in my head over and over actually does have some value - it is real.

This is what fuels communication, the need to be understood, the need to be right, the need to connect, the need to get to the bottom of things - and have some feedback on our own madness.

If I was to boil communication down to one essential thing - it's a mental exercise by which our mind is trying to prove it's adequacy. This mind-proving is in response to the fact that no one really knows how things work. We face the terrifying uncertainty of having no control, and being bombarded by meanings.

Millenials and Attention Seeking

While browsing social media have you ever come across completely empty communication? A statement which feels like it is going through the motions to get some response - it has no conviction or truth to it. This is empty communication, this is game playing.

Morally there's nothing wrong with game playing, because my morality would yet again be another story in my head. A story completely different to your story about what is right. Yet I am going to put forward that in terms of cultivating self actualized human beings and making this whole game a bit kinder - this kind of communication doesn't seem to be doing much. Empty communication; in the pursuit of approval, seems to be content to chase that response and find satisfaction in the momentary approval.

After all authenticity and integrity are meaningless without some response or reaction. If no one is watching then who are we being true to? Ourselves!?!? This is sounding dangerously like an honest look in the mirror. First things first, get a bunch of people to look at us - we can figure out later if the show we are putting on for them has any value.

Yet in a weird kind of way, this whole public 'outside of us game' is exactly what some of us need to have a real conversation with ourselves. We use the other to reflect on what we are. There's many paths, there's many levels. Self honesty isn't gleaned overnight, so the social game seems to provide valuable opportunities.

Give Me Your Attention 💢💢💢💢💢

There are many tricks and tactics to get you to pay attention - attention has become a valuable commodity. Any successful YouTuber can tell you this, and they can also tell you which methods they use to provoke emotional responses and get us to click on the thumbnail and watch their video. It's a game, it's math, it's analytics. Sometimes it's a seduction, sometimes it's a trick or even a trap.

Everyone wants you to buy in, so the skill of getting people to buy in seems to be the most important skill in the universe. For the earth bound human that is.

The Age of Aquarius, Mass Communication, Mass Connection and Disconnection

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why young people have a tendency toward this method of communicating. They have emerged as a naked unprepared human beings in a time when communication is possible on a massive level to anyone. It's really a game of who gets the privilege of connecting out to thousands or millions of people. That's the whole game.

It is a time when communication is thrown at young people intensively from day one. At best this is a little bamboozling, why do these people need us to listen to them so bad? At worst it's a pernicious method of control for children and youth who are more inclined to absorb than filter the vast amounts of information thrown their way.

When we look around we see that the successful people and structures are the ones that get a lot of attention. In the case of many of our institutions they literally force us to listen. We pay homage to institutions which threaten or force us to play into their particular idea of how things work (which is of course as much a guess as anyone else's idea). We have completely normalized this way of being, and we don't find anything strange about this one way communication high way. We don't find anything strange about always being told, and having a tiny voice which evaporates in the pipelines before it can become a roar.

Your Uniqueness, Authenticity, Personal Power

On the fundamental unified level, we are all alike as beings. You could say something like this is the most minimalistic or simple way of looking at things. You could also say that this is the highest spiritual truth. That when we really hone in on any thing or any opinion that there is just a load of empty space. It's nothing, and it the same as everything else in it's nothingness.

Let's keep going with this idea that what I have just said is a meaningless opinion though, and explore the other side of things. Because in this manifest world, we all have a completely unique way of interpreting life and communicating our experience of it (without exception). So in one way we are sameness, and in another way our fundamental nature is difference. What a conundrum!

It really is no wonder that communication is such a crucial point of reference. It is so intimately tied up in our idea of "me-ness" and "you-ness". If in fact we are fundamentally unified, then it makes complete sense that we would always seek to bridge this imaginary gap between different expressions of the same nothingness. We want them to connect and be one because we sense that this is somehow true. Communication is the means of the pieces and parts connecting and feeling some union.

You could say that communication is more or less always tied up in a "Me and You" dilemma. Perhaps a more appropriate word would be 'communion'. In communion we share more of a silent knowing, and in experiencing this communion - all of the loose ends in our minds are seen through as just our imagination.

The Sane Path

If we want to communicate clearly, then it pays to put some time into investigating the voice inside us which has an opinion about everything. Where do the opinions come from? Have they just been picked up like grass seeds clinging to our trousers?

If we investigate the voice inside us that makes things seems urgent and fearful, then we will understand the desperation of social media and the plight of human beings in general.

The ability to not take our own stories and identity seriously could be the number one ability for creating conflict free societies. It enables us to be completely honest about what's going on for us, without falling into self judgement or attacking others. We see all these stories as just happenings, happenings which are changing and moving through. They are not static truths, they are temporary approximations based on all kinds of crazy influences. We learn to treat them as such and handle ourselves and other humans accordingly.

We remove assumptions, judgements, and all of the things that we would not impose on our own way of seeing things. To be clear and open, empty, and thus more capable to perceive how and why someone thinks and talks like they do.

Most potently, we can learn to be quiet. To just sit or stand or walk. To go to work and do our job not for some personal reason to be better or make a difference. But just because it happens to be a part of the life unfolding before us. We learn to just be and drop all the stories.

Simply Put

In that utter simplicity there is no thought which needs attention, there is nothing more important than the simple beauty of just being. In that state we treat all of the world with equanimity, our communication becomes clear and light hearted. We see it for the game that it is, and we never become drawn into seriousness. We never pick sides because it seems absurd. We enjoy life and naturally want to share that enjoyment.

Our communication becomes an art of sharing what we find useful and real. It becomes a means of sharing the dearest things in our hearts, and making it alive and accessible for other people that we share a unity with.

Is this the end game of the information age? I enjoy this possibility very much, yet just like everything else it's a story in my head, just as real as the stories in your head. A passing cloud which is real enough in this moment, and then tomorrow we will wonder if it ever happened at all.