Language Creates Reality
Have you ever paused to consider what is language? It’s clearly more than just the articulation of spoken and written words. Language elucidates the unimaginable; triggers and soothes feelings; connects minds. It can open doors and burn bridges. In fact, the way we use language shapes our world in so many ways and yet we so often take it for granted. Language is in fact the manifestation of lives touching, intertwining and resolving to an undeniable oneness. It is vibrational energy and our ability to harness its true power and purpose is nothing short of a miracle.
“And don’t worry about the bits you don’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.”
Roald Dahl
Language has a quality that can permeate our mind in an unfathomably mysterious manner. We’ve all been captivated at one time or another by a song performed in a foreign language and yet somehow we understand it. It seems to seep into and through us, leaving our mind deeply touched; somehow sensing the intent of its creator. Here, words are mere vessels from which we imbibe the meaning with flawless interpretation because we, by receiving the message, are part of the linguistic equation. This provides a clue to how the brain and body process language and why it is so essential to our lived experience.
The Data Dance
Language has a single purpose for humans; namely connection. It helps us to structure the infinitely vast possibilities that define our relationship with the world and each other. One of the most fascinating aspects of this amazing human capability is what is not said can be at least as significant as what is. Missing data is the most powerful form of information because it is obtained through inquiry of the unknown.
We tend to process missing data by filling the vacuum with assumptions and expectations (what we want to see) and this can cause us all sorts of problems. The good news is, we intuitively understand that questions are the most effective tool for discovering missing data and so begins the dance. The eternal tango between our natural curiosity and socially procured angst; taboos, secrets and the dead-hand of cultural behavioural codes whose origins and purpose are long lost in the midst of time.
“Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact, language remains the master of man. ”
Martin Heidegger
Questions illuminate the road through the unknown. To the beat of the tango, they carve out space for possibilities and allow our mind to grow by discerning our own truths. Crafting the right questions is about listening not expressing and in the end, as befits a tango, questions can be most compelling when they’re unencumbered by words. With deep listening in the right contextual flow, a conversation takes the form of collective awareness and, as Martin Heidegger suggested, in this sense, our ultimate duty to each other in this life is to “become a question” and together shape new realities.
