Listen up! Can you hear me now?
I had an out of body experience recently and found myself surfing the Huffington Post religion section. Say what?
Don’t worry. This post goes downhill from that. 🙂
So, yeah. While I was there I found this video about listening. At first I thought it was touchy-feeling mumbo jumbo of the sort I would normally sneer all over, but I gave it a listen and I think she makes some damn good points. She approaches and communicates the subject matter in a way I wish I could – only without curse words and using actual intelligence and sensitivity.
My problem, I guess, is that I’m too busy wanting to punch in the face of asshole communicators to take the time to explain things this way. So I’ll leave it to her.
Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t fall for all of this hook, line and sinker, but I can’t help but think the world would be a better place if us human beings stopped being such selfish assholes and practiced the long-forgotten art of listening.
Who the fuck is this “other” of which she speaks? I like to call it “someone besides your own fucking self, you asshole.” But that’s just me. I have the gift of translation which I often use to put things in layman’s terms. In other words, there are people out there, other than yourself, who may also occasionally want to get in a word edgewise, so shut yer fucking blowhole and give ’em a chance once in a while.
The video is only two minutes long. Do you feel lucky? Well? Do ya punk?
WordPress didn’t make it easy to embed a Huffington Post video here. So pay a little respect and absorb this shit, k?
Vodpod videos no longer available.Barriers to communication
In a previous post entitled Intellectual Intercourse Interruptions I introduced my discovery of the modern communication model.
Since then, I have discovered a few barriers to communication that I’d like to share with you now.
The first barrier is called Mutually Assured Distraction (MAD). In this model, two me-oriented persons are transmitting simultaneously. The messages hurl towards each other much like two freight trains on a single track. When they meet somewhere in the middle, the messages explosively cancel each other out, very effectively preventing any actual communication from taking place. Since the transmit sources are so fully locked in me-only-modes, neither party is aware that all communications have been blocked. This blockage is also known as Conversational Mushroom Cloud.
Some modern communications are so completely surrounded by this particular barrier that they go through life locked in transmit while remaining blissfully unaware that none of their messages have ever been received.
The second barrier turns out to be something inside each and every one of us. (Well, most of us.) It is our very own brain working against us being effective communicators! Cranium drainium is a condition suffered by an alarming number of modern communicators. In a process known as thin slicing, our brains peripherally receiving incoming messages. Involuntary functions within the brain perform a very limited analysis of these messages. Those that are identified as pertaining to ourselves are admitted to higher levels of consciousness. Those that don’t pass this test are vigorously attacked, much like antibodies defend us against biological intruders. Those with highly developed cranium drainium systems are able to go through life believing that everything is about them.
The third barrier I’d like to discuss is something I’ve dubbed recievius terminus. Those with this condition are, like the rest of us, very developed me-oriented communicators. They can expound about themselves nearly 24/7 and with an amazing level of excruciating detail. But even the best me-communicators need breaks. That’s where recievius terminus kicks in. Literally nanoseconds after their final me-transmission has ended, a recievius terminus expert will take dramatic action to prevent the possibility of communications from anyone else being received. The most common form of this is probably turning one’s back and aggressively walking away.
See how many of these barriers to communication you can identify as you engage in conversation in the coming days. I bet you’ll have a plethora of opportunities to witness these in action.
I would suggest that you return here to report your findings but alas, I won’t be listening.
Good luck!
Shouts from the Abyss 
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