May 27, 2014

May 27, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writer feels deeply rested and satisfied. The cat is meowing, far away the traffic can be heard and it is a pleasant and cool morning. This writer can take it easy this morning because he only needs to be at his work at eleven. He has some time to think and write. Because things are so good, he decided to find a new letter type. He went down the list and noted that he had never written with the letter type called “Vivaldi.” Since Vivaldi is one of his favorite composers, he chose this letter to write today’s entry in his journal. With this new letter he could only write in cursive, but he liked the look of it: elegant and smooth as Vivaldi’s music. 

There is something Baroque about this letter type, which this writer greatly appreciates. This letter type stands for order and beauty. This writer will find out what he is going to write while he listens to music of Vivaldi. This is in itself such an enjoyable exercise. He did not have this idea before, but now he wants to experiment more often with writing while listening to music. 

This writer was reading about “behavioral cusps", new experiences which make new learning possible. When this writer discovered how his writing was affected by the type of letter he chose to write with, he unexpectedly embarked on a process of exploration and discovery, which still continues in this writing. This one discovery led to many others. Before this writer knew about the influence of letter types on his writing, he had no idea what he was missing. Only after he discovered that different letter types facilitate new writings, this writer realized what a treasure he had found. With the “Vivaldi” letter type he found that both tone and the content was equally affected, which had not been the case with the other letter types. 

This discovery confirmed what he had previously found. He discovered Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) by listening to himself while he speaks. Paying attention to the sound of his voice, while he speaks, led to an entirely different, improved way of communicating. As he taught it to others, it became clear that it was equally true for everyone who experimented with it.  

Although this writer has done quite some writing, he hasn’t done any writing while listening to music. Listening to music of Vivaldi, which is music of his liking, is like listening to the sound of his own voice which he only makes when he is at ease and calm. The author never imagined that this would be possible, but while writing these words he is convinced that this is the case.

Besides,, of course, being determined by his own behavioral history, this writing is also under joint control of the visual and auditory stimuli of the Vivaldi letter type. The beautiful compositions this author hears while he is writing these words are reflected in the clarity of the concepts that he explains.