Going to university is truly a gift, because if we spend a little time reflecting, we realize that we are here to learn how to learn, how to think ultimately. And this is important, isn’t it? Because we often lack the skill set to communicate.
So, what can one do when you are not understood is what I would like to talk about today.
Now, you think to yourself, to go back to when you were a wee child, maybe six or seven years old, you went to school and you had a teacher who perhaps was a little bit terrifying, to be honest.
Now, I’m old enough to go back to a time in grade one that you literally didn’t speak. Speaking was just unthinkable to be in a classroom, that is.
So, you would sit there and the teacher would arrive and you would stand up, and then you would sing at this point in time, God saved the queen. Now, of course, we have a king, but God saved the queen.
And then, the teacher would come and inspect your nails, and I guess this was a big thing relative to hygiene, where you’re being washed properly by your parents, and then you would sit down, and that was a sense of order.
So, from that moment onwards, you attempted to fit into a classroom with other children, you strive to be successful, and you labored to be understood.
And I think this is a process that in the modern world has largely failed, when it comes to the arena of politics, because if you watch speeches from the UN, or perhaps other televised dialogues between individuals, you realize that there are many
times talking about two totally different spheres of influence. Totally.
So if you were to take a person perhaps from the Middle East, from a country like Syria, that’s been wracked by nothing but war, and rumors of wars for centuries basically, and an individual from perhaps the United States or Canada, societies that
have seen nothing but peace for over 200 years, and you put those two in a room, and you bring some type of contentious issue to the forefront, you’re going to have disagreement immediately, perhaps verbally violent disagreement, because they’re both
dealing with totally different mindsets. have seen nothing but peace for over 200 years, and you put those two in a room, and you bring some type of contentious issue to the forefront, you’re going to have disagreement immediately, perhaps verbally
violent disagreement, because they’re both dealing with totally different mindsets. The chap from Syria, he’s been subjected to, of course, an ongoing stream of violence. So his world view would be limited by the violence and by his religion.
And whereas a person from North America comes from a very pluralistic society, and everyone accepts that we should be able to talk, and these shocking killings on an ongoing basis in North America, some of it fueled by mental illness, some of it
fueled by religious hatred, of course, hatred against another group, or just random madness, whatever it is, it really defies intelligence, defies understanding, because the average person, I think, to be fair, does not understand violence in North
America, because we come from a relatively peaceful society. And now if you come to Taiwan, where I presently live, the Taiwanese society is profoundly peaceful, for the most part, and safe, because of Confucius, basically, Confucian values. Unheard
of ideas in the West, but the great conundrum that we all face as world citizens is that there’s only around eight billion of us, or a little bit more, on this planet. And we have to learn to understand one another, so we can stop war, obviously, the
killing. killing.
So what can you do when you are not understood? Practice some of these precepts, sort of these ideas. Firstly, clarify yourself.
I think many times when we speak, we don’t ask, did you understand what I just said? I’ve tried this at times, and you get back some really strange answers, like you haven’t been understood at all.
And this could be because of background, it could be because of different environments, a different dynamic in the family. You don’t know for sure. Also, there is a level of understanding, of maybe even intelligence.
So lower the conversation. It doesn’t have to be an educated conversation. You can use basic examples to explain what you’re trying to say.
And always remind yourself, this is just a conversation. So if you elevate your voice, the other person is going to do the same thing for sure. So calm it down.
And if they start to raise their voice, lower your voice down. Lower it down. And realize that sometimes people are just not going to get what you’re talking about.
Maybe they haven’t read the book or the books or the concepts. They’re just too bizarre for them to understand, right? And examine your own ego, I think, is also a good statement.
Sometimes we want to be correct. And we are arguing just to find a way to say to ourselves that, hey, look, I’m a smart man. I’ve won the argument.
But you could win the argument and lose the war. And anyone who’s in a long term relationship knows that for sure. Sometimes it’s better just to let it go.
Let it go and realize that just perhaps you’re not going to be understood, right?
But I think that if you think back in history, how many times have we gone after someone else just because they were of a different race or a different religion or perhaps a different society in general?
Because once again, as Christ said in his Sermon on the Mount, in so many words that as human beings, we are predicated on love. We have to learn to love one another. If I say, I love you, everyone understands.
I love you like a friend. I love you like a teacher. I love you like a boyfriend, a girlfriend, whatever it is, a parent.
But if I say, I hate you, how do you hate me? You don’t like the way I look. Perhaps you don’t like the way I smell, whatever.
There’s always some misunderstanding when it comes to hate. And curiously, with human beings, once the flow begins, it’s very, very hard to stop the movement.
So you think to yourself, in Germany, in the 1920s, when Nazism really took off, they were a fringe group, considered a pack of nuts, when they published their manifesto in the early 20s.
People thought they were just crazy, to put it mildly, but by the time they were elected in 1933, by the time some 10 or so years later, by the time they were elected, everybody was on side, for the most part, right to the very top.
The top philosopher in the country, the industrialists, the crops, were involved. Everybody supported Hitler in the Nazi Party because he had convinced him this was the right way.
And then, of course, over the next two years, in 1933 and 34, maybe 400,000 to 600,000 people fled Germany. The brightest people just got out.
And the ones that stayed, if they were of the wrong ethnicity, if they were Jewish or communist or whatever it was, a very bad thing came to pass. Many, many were in prison, many died, many were killed over time.
But the general population had been co-opted, and they supported Hitler and his policies.
And as the war progressed, they became more and more insular, to a point that even after World War II, when many of the denazification trials finally ended, because they had to, by the early 50s, the Cold War beginning, and a lot of those ideological
ideas stayed with the German people, for sure. And we’re seeing it once again come out in some of the right-wing movements. Now, I’m not making a political statement here. This is statements of fact.
So if you put a so-called right-wing person and a so-called left-wing person together, you’re going to find they want the same thing. They want safety and peace and love and family and a home, right?
As human beings, we want these things, but we must accomplish these things by learning to speak to one another, for sure.
And the great philosopher of language, Wichtenstein, he always said that in the end, if we can’t really explain ourselves, then just maybe silence is necessary, right? Great quote. There are indeed things that cannot be put into words.
They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. Now I’ll give you one more.
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. So in other words, as I understand, he’s advocating that sometimes perhaps we can’t put things into language.
We have to show it, I don’t know, in life, maybe in our actions, in art, maybe in senescence, ultimately in the way we approach life, in our conduct.
If I’m saying quit smoking and I’m a heavy smoker, or if I say quit drinking and I’m a heavy drinker, it seems ridiculous. I think it’s the same thing with language.
If I’m saying be tolerant, and yet I’m not a tolerant man, or be peaceful and there’s no peace in my heart, well, obviously, people are not going to listen to me. I have to be a model of my thoughts, or once again, say nothing. Learn to say nothing.
So when you are not understood, say to yourself, sometimes, just maybe, people are seeing the world in a totally different way. And I think we can always be an active listener. An active listener means you’re really listening to the person, right?
You’re focusing on what they’re saying, and you are trying to empathize with their social circumstance, whatever it is, right? Eye contact is always a great one. And I think my friend David always says that it’s authenticity, right?
We got to be authentic beings. It’s the only way we’ll ever be listened to, by being authentic and being genuine. We say we empathize.
We really must empathize.
And something I always say to myself, don’t interject with your own stories or examples, because sometimes they mean, or most times probably, they mean absolutely nothing to the other person, because perhaps you have a different age or a different
background. An example, if I go on to talk about poverty with someone and lack of money and you’re homeless at the train station, I’ve never been homeless and I’ve never lacked money. If I needed money, I could always get it.
I think I’m like most people. I could get it through friends, family, a job. I was never hungry on the street, begging.
I’ve never been one of the two million homeless and semi-homeless people in North America. So I can’t identify with those kinds of realities. I can’t.
And it’s the same thing with war and violence. But that all aside, we have to learn to talk to one another. Have to.
And you know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking is excellent, especially if we’re going to be understood.
And critical thinking is great. Truly great. You take care.
God bless. Bye bye.