Deliveries,

 

As I was doing my deliveries today, I was listening to the radio. Someone spoke in a hurried and intense manner, about the terrible situation in some other country and stated, our media should do a better job reporting on this. As I considered the demands and claims that were made, I felt like laughing, because, supposedly, this one particular case was so incredibly urgent, that it was more important than any other case, according to the stressful reporter.     

 

In Disembodied Language (DL) everyone is saying the exact same thing, as this so-called investigative journalist, who seems to believe, she gives a voice to the voiceless. Whatever their case may be, it is always the most important. Indeed, our DL sounds familiar, because, according to this or that news program, according to this or that interest-group, this or that problem is always more important than anything else. And, they endlessly complain and argue, that it is unfair, that their issue is not addressed, ignored or not getting the attention it needs or deserves.

 

Surely, during DL, which continuous to be our usual way of talking, not only anyone’s special problem requires our attention, but all our problems are the same, in that, presumably, they all very badly need our attention. Thus, our common way of talking is about some falsely-claimed special problem, which has managed to get our attention. Consequently, all speakers in OT, in one way or another, demand our attention. Although certain topics are more or less addressed, they are never sufficiently covered, as the news anchor only has another thirty seconds left or needs to go to the commercials, as commercial topics take priority over what presumably is the news.

 

It is beyond dispute that our usual way of talking is based on demanding each other’s attention. Once we take this perspective, we can’t deny, that none of our well-intended efforts – to get our point of view across, to get our beliefs confirmed, to get our concerns properly addressed and our problems resolved – have worked. To the contrary, our problems have not only become more numerous, they have also become bigger and our struggle to get each other’s attention has dramatically intensified, to the inevitable point of escalating again in violence. This is how we, within and between cultures, deal with one another. Inasmuch as we would like to believe in a difference in cultural conditioning, the reality is, that the way of talking, in which speakers dominate the listener, by competing for the attention of the listener, is ubiquitous, universal, or cross-cultural.

 

Everywhere, around the world, speakers attempt to oppress, exploit, and silence listeners, who are often not even allowed to speak. DL rules and divides us into those, who presumably have power and those, who presumably want to have power. However, both, the oppressor as well as the oppressed speak the same language, as they engage in DL, in which everyone knows their place or is punitively told what their place is. This is the world we create and maintain by how we speak.  

 

The aforementioned illustrates, that none of our relationship problems are accurately addressed, let alone, resolved. We never get to talk about our way of talking, yet our DL creates our problems and keeps them going. Our difficult way of talking never gives way to Embodied Language (EL), our easy way of talking, which will solve our problems. This transition is the only thing that is really going to make a difference. Once we have EL instead of DL, everything changes. EL exceeds all our expectations, as it has nothing to do with expectations, but with our own verbal skill.