If you’re reading this, you’re probably human. Therefore, you’re probably used to taking a lot of important gifts for granted. My intent is not to berate your ingratitude, but to ask you to assume a larger and more humbling perspective, just for a minute. Viewed individually, human beings are exceedingly vulnerable and powerless. We have no fangs, claws, poison, armor, horns, wings, or even fur. Our senses are laughably feeble in comparison to many so-called "lesser creatures.” We require long gestation and weaning periods. We’re susceptible to many kinds of threats and diseases. We’re not terribly tolerant of temperature extremes. Sure, opposable thumbs are cool and useful – but ask any raccoon how far that famed appendage really elevates you in the evolutionary pecking order.
As a species, our most valuable characteristic probably is our ability to connect through communication. This gift literally saves us by allowing us to cooperate and share experiences, impressions, skills, and knowledge. It empowers us to transcend our considerable physical limitations, to form a "group mind” of sorts. As much as we trumpet individualism, our true strength is our deep interdependence.
Armed with the knowledge and infrastructure crafted painstakingly by countless generations, humans can kill large, strong, toothy predators at a safe distance with a gun. Or better still, we can avoid them altogether by learning from others where those beasts are and how they hunt. Without this cumulative support, most of us would find it hard to contend with a determined raccoon – let alone a cougar. In short, without communication there would be no "long term” or "big picture.”
CONSTRUCTIVE COMMUNICATION: IT’S NOT JUST A NICE IDEA, IT’S YOUR LIFELINE
Obviously, a tool as powerful as communication is a mixed blessing. Any person or group can easily use communication in destructive ways – from "You’ve got cooties, ewwww….” to "Aw, can’t you take a joke?” to "This pharmaceutical has been voided from our formulary as per section 325.49(b)” to "Kill all the Tutsis!”
Nevertheless, it seems to me that everything useful, good, beautiful, and healing that humans have created relies on communication – either between people acting together, or by individuals acting on what they’ve learned from others. This communication can be direct (face to face), or via media (from cave paintings, to books, to the internet). It can transcend space and time.
A sound, effective content strategy is constructive. It relies on leveraging common goals and interests. It’s about creating resonance between you and the people you need to reach so you can build value together. It’s about clarifying and contributing to the common good – whether you’re a student, a business, a coalition, or a government. Ultimately, we’re all just people.
Sure, it’s possible to develop a content strategy that relies on deception, concealment, polarization, obfuscation, exploitation, intimidation, or stonewalling. However, these false strengths are surprisingly easy to undermine – simply because people talk. And when people talk, stuff starts to happen.
People communicate every day: at work, at school, at the university, thereby they learn a lot of interesting facts about different things, themselves, their friends. I think if we didn't talk, we would go mad and turn into animals. Only because of communication we remain humans.
I agree with MissJane, this is all so true and natural. Staying silent and observant, unintruding and considerate, self-defending and protective of others - well, I often communicate in this way. This is a strategy that can harvest you a lot of positive emotions and reactions. If verbal communication is a must, unavoidable, required, it is often fueled by those moments of silence and observation.
“If you’re reading this, you’re probably human” When I’ve read this phrase I remembered the quote from Jeff Noon’s “Falling out of cars”: “If you can read this, you are still alive”. A person unable to communicate seems to be more like a vegetable than a human. It’s obvious that the ability to get information, analyze, keep and transmit it is the key human ability that makes us different from all other creatures. Like all the mushrooms in the forest are united by their mycelium, all people on the planet can be united by their verbal and nonverbal means of communication.
Communication is a VERY important part in our life. First of all it helps us to live in society, to support a contact with people who surround us. It is a possibility to make new acquaintances. It is a way to express your thoughts, ideas, feelings and emotions, to send special messages with the help of words, voice, hands and even body. More over all people want to receive new information and communication helps to do it. And humanity can not exist without it!!!
WHen I communicate, I enjoy the process, the subject, the results and, of course, being with my interlocutor. I always communicate positively. I tend to avoid negative communication. I tend to avoid conflicts, antagonism and unjustified criticism, I just haste away. For me communication is a tool to live and work.
Yes, it sounds reasonable to avoid negative communication and stay in a positive tune. But what if it is at times relieving to avoid the very communication? I thought about it a lot and still wonder what would have happened if some words had not been said, if that or this telephone call had not been made? Actually different cultures have different attitudes towards active communication. Some view it as an indisputable benefit to our society, others are on the road to being quite reticent and consider silence as a sign of social harmony. The power of communication is much greater than the power of silence though, but the latter is the small screw that enables the entire machine work.
I like your words, "when people talk, stuff starts to happen". I guess people have never thought about what would happen if we couldn't talk. Communication is a very important thing that has already helped us to do a lot of things and of course will help us greatly in the future too. So it just can't be excluded from our life. We are so much different from animals, but still inspite of the fact that we don't have any means of protection, we have a language. And this is our main arm. Because even a simple talk can change many things...
