Are we drowning each others hearts?
I have been probing the question of communication, scarcely surprising one should be thinking about it given the current quality of our conversations both in our digital and bodily forms. I stumbled on this beautiful book Silence of God: Meditations on prayer by James P Carse, like all of his other works incredibly written. In one of the chapters, he dwells into the nature of silence in communication. Interestingly, he talks about two types, the silence of obedience and the silence of expectation in speech.
The silence of obedience entails those times where-in we become listeners and assign the privilege of speech to winners of an office, a title like the President, and so on. They are referred to as imperative speakers. For example, when the Pope addresses the mass, everyone falls into silence or chooses not to speak out of obedience to the position or the title. Not only does this silence bring our speech to an end, but we are equally aware of our silence in those situations.
The silence of expectation, on the other hand, is the one that makes speech possible. In these situations, people that do listen have given up a claim to superiority, emptied any claim to office or title but embraced equal and shared humanity. This is the form of silence that gives us a voice to speak.Unless we have someone to speak to we cannot speak, unless someone is listening there is no one to whom we can speak. Imagine if people around us stopped listening we will indeed have nothing to say because we will only be talking to ourselves. Unless someone offers us the silence in the form of their listening, we cannot speak. Plus if our speech does not transform to listening, it’s merely words that have been repeated. But if one listens in openness, the other will have a voice to say things they have never said before.
I am certain we are all familiar with that one friend, or a family member, even a stranger at times who provided that silence in the form of their listening where you could pour your heart out.This enables opening of our hearts(both for the speaker and the listener) not to discover depths but instead, to create or develop new depths in ourselves. Like the time when you read a book, or the words someone said that touched you, even the words in this article could be opening up your heart to something new. The speech in the expectant mode is not contradictory but reciprocal.
What we are witnessing largely in our societies, on social media represents the culture of imperative speakers, where one speaks to make another silent. Or one joins a group, a belief, a party to make the other group silent. End of the day we are not communicating at all when we refuse to listen. Most people refuse to listen as they disagree with what is being said.
The idea is not to express disagreement but the tools we are using to deal with disagreements are that of judgement, hatred, violence to cancel people out. These are irrational ways of dealing with each other. I am certain most of us have faced the consequences of judgment, hatred, even violence, and precisely one of the reasons many people prefer the company of animals, infants, as they don’t employ such tools in their form of communication. We are merely masking each others hearts and voices when we engage with these tools.These tools are typically employed when a new idea, a new discovery, new theories, other’s beliefs or perspectives, contradict with our own beliefs in our minds.When our beliefs or identities are questioned, it creates great discomfort and disturbance in our brains. And we tend to force our brains back to equilibrium by utilising these tools.
We can’t go further in to this inquiry without talking about belief. The literal definition of belief “is a fact or a statement accepted as maintaining an existence and held to be true.”Consequently, the content of the belief can vary from scientific, religious, to the spiritual, nationalism and so on. I examine the structure of belief and question whether we need to retain any beliefs at all in my upcoming book. At this place, I will consider a straightforward example of a scientific belief as the other forms are rather abstract to discuss.
If we look at our scientific endeavours, let’s consider the example of Newtonian science which was tested, verified held to be true suddenly came into question with theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. Its not about something becoming false suddenly, rather an indication that as humans inquire into new domains the older theories become unclear needing further investigation.If all the scientists stuck to their theories as true (implying that they do not change) we would not allow new discoveries we see in the world today. But if one is going to be married to their beliefs then it is a self-imposed limitation, merely the belief that a particular theory or idea communicates true knowledge of reality at all times. Like during those times when an earthbound observer felt earth to be unmoving, solid and stable was confronted with the heliocentric model. It might have caused considerable discomfort if one believed in the geocentric model and less so for a person who simply received it with curiosity, progress of science and more importantly as an impersonal fact.
After-all, essential characteristic of the scientific method is the continual probing, criticizing and testing of every feature of every theory, no matter how fundamental that theory may seem to be.
In essence we cannot go beyond existing limitations and changes to confront new facts if we consider everything set in stone. The question is not about true or false, enough evidence, no evidence, or stupid claims, but the real question is whether we can employ the tools of curious engagement and openness when confronted with contradictions. Not turn our focus and energy just to save our beliefs or resort to labeling others as wrong. This behaviour also steers us to treat individuals, society largely as something fixed and limited which is of no use if we hope to see our society evolve from what it is right now.
Additionally, if we go in to the more difficult areas of religious beliefs or even violent extremist beliefs, it all comes down to people holding these beliefs to be true. Individuals invest a great deal of their identity in these beliefs, for some they may define who they are. It is the ground on which human beings have decided to stand and if the ground is questioned their whole world seems to collapse creating enormous discomfort.
Regardless of the belief, a scientific or an irrational one(say QAnon beliefs) in both scenarios individuals believe it to be true and their belief is informing their actions in the world (even if it is a confused one). What we can offer here is the tool of compassion to perceive what is driving ourselves or other individuals to hold on to beliefs in the first place. Plus how as a society, via our communities, education systems we can equip each other to see the dangers of a belief system. Judgement or hatred in conversations are counter-productive, in fact it fuels people to hold on to their beliefs if they are attacked. When we stay open in the silence by way of our listening, neither party feels the need to defend, secure or protect themselves or their beliefs. We can still go back home with our beliefs :) ..
I heard someone mention this in a talk recently, if we informed a devout believer in prayer mid-air that the aircraft is going to be unmanned to test the power of prayer, most certainly he will insist to bring the pilot back. There is invariably room for us to converse and listen to each other to test the validity and limitations of our beliefs at all times.
This picture below (in slow motion) enters my mind whenever I see myself or anyone else bringing in judgement and hatred in to a conversation. If only at that moment we were to suspend or hold back our judgments( super-hero move indeed!) and decide to apply the intelligent tools of curious engagement, openness, compassion to receive others fully we could generate a positive impact into each of our lives.
Hopefully, we can make room in our hearts to open up (in this season of hearts) and understand the world better and to secure a more promising future not only for us human but all the residents on this planet earth.
Appending to Rumi’s words “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, right or wrong views, opinions or beliefs there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
