June 10, 2014

June 10, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer just read some of his work to a couple of people he knows. They really liked it. This reinforces this writer to write and to feel more comfortable about his writing. As a consequence of reading the two people who heard it said wonderful things. They acknowledged the importance of a person’s ability to be able to have a private speech which is enhanced instead of diminished by public speech. While talking the three of us laughed a lot. We felt friendship. 

Although this writer has often experienced the beneficial effects of the writings of others, he has never given much attention to the possible positive effects of his own writing on others, because he was always so focused on speaking. It feels like an immense relief to this writer that he no longer so strongly feels the need to speak with others, because he is now beginning to talk through his writings. He has not known this feeling before and is only just beginning to explore it. Because it is so new it is very exciting and like breaking new ground.

There is a sense of success, which suddenly permeates each of these words. His previous writings were not yet part of the conversation with others, but these words are more meaningful, because they are read by a different reader. This writer is trying to figure out how this happened? Because his writing changed, his reading of his own writing changed as well. This writer who recently read about the independent development of speaking and listening behavior now realizes the same is true for writing and reading. Moreover, he recognizes, in the same way that his speaking behavior is more developed than his listening behavior, his writing behavior is also more developed than his reading behavior. This is indeed an incredible discovery which definitely needs more exploration. It is fascinating, because this writer has always been such a slow reader. As as child, this writer had problems and anxieties around reading and writing. 

In the same way that he had to slow down his speaking, to be able to listen to himself while he speaks, he also had to slow down in his writing, to become a better reader of his own writing. Another way of saying this is that his writing wasn’t able to improve due to his lack of reading his writing. Although he did on rare occasion let others read his writings, he never cared enough about his writings to let others read it, let alone publish it. For him speaking was more important than writing and, consequently, his writing never got much of his attention. 

It wasn’t until the connection was made between, on the one hand, the speaker and the listener, and, on the other hand, the writer and the reader, that this writer began to take note of his own writing. It seemed as if he had never read his own writing. This important component of the development of his verbal behavior had been virtually ignored. Although he had completed all his Ph.D. course work and had written many papers, he had never considered his writing as having any value. In the same way he once discovered that what he said was important and needed to be listened to, he now began to read what he had written. 

During a conversation with a colleague from China this author mentioned that what we are saying is a function of how we are saying it and that what we are writing is a function of how we are reading. If we are not listening to what we are saying, we are saying different things than when we are listening. When we are reading while we are writing, we are writing totally different things. A big difference between speaking and listening or writing and reading is that with the former the impact is direct, while with the latter, the reading of what was written can happen years or centuries afterwards. If what was written was about what was said, a special effect is created, because on the one hand, what was said still has this immediate response, but because it was written, this response is transported across time. It made this author want to read about how people talked in the Middle Ages. What were they actually saying to each other? How is it different from or similar to what we are saying now?