Interactions,

 

Our interactions with each other are the foundation for our relationships. Due to our conversations, we, hopefully, behave, in, what can be described as, at least, a somewhat civilized manner. However, each society, every culture, came about and was and is sustained mainly by Disembodied Language (DL).

 

Although Embodied Language (EL) is, simply stated, our natural, effortless way of talking, we seldom if ever accomplish it. Even among, presumably, close family members, friends, or the participants of the groups we affiliate with because of preferences, beliefs, or values, we hardly have any EL. Sadly, we can only have some accidental EL with each other, but never deliberately, skillfully, or consistently. The few, brief moments of EL, which we usually describe as profound or deep, are troublesome, as we do not possess the necessary skill set to go on with it and we do not know how to find it back, when we lose it. The moment we experience some EL, it is gone.   

 

Thousands of philosophical, psychological, spiritual self-help books and articles have been written, to address what I call EL, but they all have missed the mark, as they were, at best, a distraction from or an effort to, supposedly, transcend our DL. Since none of our so-called experts know anything about the great difference between DL and EL, it has never been stated clearly, that what we have framed as psychology, philosophy, or spirituality is, just like our sciences, merely referring to our way of talking.

 

Surely, we hang on to all kinds of texts, guidelines, scriptures, theories, laws, definitions, and myths, in the idle hope to achieve some EL, but the reality is, our writings, about speaking and relationship, has never done anything to change how we interact. We live in modern environments, which are made possible by our technologies and sciences, yet, we talk in a superstitious, anti-intellectual manner.

 

The quintessential falsehood of DL is our tenacious belief, that we have a mind. However, with EL, we finally fully acknowledge, there are only neurons, neurotransmitters, white and grey matter, in our heads, but there are no thoughts, sentences, words, pictures, memories, or associations. Our common way of talking has maintained the harmful illusion that we can have covert speech or inaudible private conversations with ourselves. Due to our almost permanent involvement in DL, this seems to be the only way we know and accept, how to speak about our experiences. Anyone with half a brain will know: there never existed an inner, behavior-causing self.

 

We talk about our behavior as if we know, but our catastrophic lives illustrate, we only know how to mechanically repeat our old assumptions, which were conditioned by the circumstances, which we have experienced and endured. Our EL is not some theory, but a biological reality. We either can talk without any fear, because we feel completely safe and relaxed or we speak in way, which signifies, we feel threatened, stressed, defensives, aggressive or dissociated. Therefore, the difference between EL and DL is the evolutionary truth about how we talk.

 

The Dutch behaviorist Beata Bakker-De Pree (1987) elaborated in her fascinating book Constructional Behavior Therapy about the behavioral repertoire humans have in common with other organisms. Like B.F. Skinner, she had an evolutionary approach to behavior. Her theory of Dominant Active Avoidance, which perfectly dovetails with the EL/DL distinction, applied to relationships, states (I paraphrase from memory): we either approach each other and are happy or – whether we know it or not, can talk about it or not, admit or not, or are aware of it or not – we somehow seek to escape or avoid each other. Stated differently, we use our language to approach and maintain a sense of regulation or we use it to survive, by means of escape or avoidance.  

 

Escape behavior is very costly, as we have come close to a source of danger. To survive, our escape behavior should ideally be kept at a minimum and, proportionally, represent the least of our behavioral repertoire. Let us say, it should only be 5% of what we do. Ideally, we do not need to escape and the remaining 95% of our behavior contains avoidance or approach behavior. To maintain homeostasis, all living organisms only thrive if, proportionally, the largest part of their behavioral repertoire consists of dominant active avoidance. Approach behavior is, proportionally, much smaller than our avoidance behavior. However, finding water, food, mating, exploring, and playing, may still bring us closer to threatening circumstances. The total picture of our behavioral repertoire may look like this: 5% escape behavior, 85% dominant active avoidance and 10% approach behavior. This example is not necessarily applicable for everyone, but is meant to highlight the fact, that active avoidance should dominate our behavior. Surely, we can only accomplish this if our way of talking (EL) keeps instructing us to do this.  

 

As we can easily observe in our own lives and in the lives of others, that our dominant active avoidance behavior is, due to our DL, not playing its crucially important protective role. We, disproportionally, approach things which and people who are no good for us, from which we must escape. We still have much avoidance behavior, however, since it is not conscious, and, it is not effective. Our unconscious avoidance behavior (e.g. alcohol, drugs, violence, porn, food, amusement, work, news), prevents us from approaching healthy things and brings us in touch with life-threatening circumstances, which, ideally, should have been actively avoided. If we would prolong our EL, those behaviors would simply dissolve, as it would become clear only dominant active avoidance behavior can keep us safe, healthy, and happy. Likewise, we would only want to approach what truly benefits and enhances us, which would develop the verbal skill-set, which is essential to achieving and sustaining our wellbeing.  

 

Although EL can certainly be enjoyed with others and allows us to share our Language Enlightenment (LE) – the verbal version of homeostasis – our EL will primarily remain a form of self-stimulation, rather than a socially reinforced behavior. In other words, our need to be safe, while being verbal is innate. As  we speak, we will continue to reflexively respond to anything that is perceived, correctly or incorrectly,  as a threat. Therefore, DL is ubiquitous and EL has never flourished anywhere, as our DL has always pushed our EL aside. To this day, primitive survival behavior has continued to remain the basis of how we speak with one another. Consequently, our interaction, as conceived during DL, is always about the battle for attention. Speakers only survive or seemingly matter, if they can verbally win the battle for dominance. Interestingly, in American politics today, the left does not want to debate anymore with the right, as the technology and bureaucracy allows them to get their message across relatively painlessly. Of course, they do not practice EL, but DL, but evidently, they will do anything to avoid DL.