Words of Resonation

You are a coward.

This is what my daughter was told today by a friend, and it upset her. While I am not going to go into the behaviors of this particular "friend", I do get that Smallsteps was hurt by the words, because she is yet to learn a valuable lesson in life.

Words are just sounds.

Sure, we can look at the dictionary meaning these sounds represent, but at the end of the day, the emotional meaning is applied at the individual level. People can argue that there are positive and negative words, but no matter the word there are none that are universally negative to say or hear. It always depends on multiple factors, like context and of course, audience. Even words that are mostly seen as good or bad will have instances where the opposite is the case.

The example I used with Smallsteps for this was the word "mummy" which for her is probably the most important word in her life, even though her first word was "daddy" - I fact I like to remind my wife of from time to time. So, while mummy (in some form) is a positive word for the majority of people, if someone was abused by their mother, it might be a word that invokes fear or animosity, rather than warm, fuzzy feelings.

This is not to say that words don't have power.

Because they do.

They have power because people believe that they have power. It is a bit like fiat currency, where because people believe that it has value, it does. And words become a currency that can be traded for reaction, based on what value people assign to them. And, because there is a collective belief in the meaning of many words, they can be used to influence our behaviors in many ways, to inspire us to do awesome things, or devastating things.

For my daughter however, I want her to understand that the power of words at the individual level is something that she can learn to control. It is possible to disconnect herself from the word meanings, and look at them in other ways, like the way they are said, the tone, the intention behind them. Rather than focusing on the word, focus on the actions surrounding them, because the word is not the thing.

Are you a coward?

No.

Does calling you a coward, make you a coward?

No.

You are a stinky pig face.

Oink.

(Fuck she makes me laugh)

Even if people believe what they are saying is true, it doesn't matter. Words don't change reality, unless we act upon them. I can say and truly believe that I am seven feet tall, but it doesn't make it so. Similarly, someone can call me a myriad other names, and none of them may describe me at all.

Did you know that while it means a great number or large variety now, a "myriad" is specifically 10,000?

Words change meaning.

Which is interesting to note in a world that puts so much emphasis on the meaning of words, where people are "hurt" by hearing spoken sounds, or reading a collection of letters. If we took a step back and evaluated the importance we place on and our reactions to words, we would realize how laughable it is that we are so incredibly fragile.

The words people call other people, tell nothing about the target, but a lot about the speaker. It is them who with intention or not, are applying meaning to the words under the belief that the receiver is going to onboard the same meaning. This makes sense, because this is how we can communicate with each other and describe objects or give directions. But, once those words have an emotional valence applied, they become ambiguous in meaning, and it is impossible to know precisely how someone feels about the words they use.

I have been called many names in my life and when I was young, many were said with the intention to hurt me - but words don't hurt. Actions can. And for people who want to live a largely pain-free emotional life, teasing apart what is actually harmful from what is intended to be harmful, is one of the steps. Disconnect from the emotions of words and instead connect with the actions of people, and it will become far clearer what is a real threat, and what is not.

What I have realized is that many people use words with the intention to do some harm, rather than physically getting into an altercation. And, while this is a good thing in some respects, what it also does has made us feel more sensitive to this kind of harm, as if we are getting physically impacted. And, the more this happens, the more we identify with words, it seems the less effort we put into actually learning something, and doing something useful with our lives. We end up focusing on these ambiguous sounds coming out of people's mouths, as if them saying it makes it a reality, even though they do not follow them up with actions.

Gen-Z are more focused on the environment.

No. They are more focused on talking about the environment. There is a big difference between people who are doing something, and people who are saying they are doing something. It is like a government saying that they have the best interests of citizens in mind, while they are finding ways to decrease quality of living so that corporations can make greater profits.

Thought. Word. Action.

These are the core steps to creation. First we think something, then we form it into some kind of dialogue, then we act upon it. However, thoughts and words alone do nothing. The imperative part for creation is the Action. Words are just words until they are acted upon, or reacted upon. Because we have been trained to be reactive to meanings of words, with our unique set of trigger words based on our experiences and social conditioning, when we hear certain things, we react, like Pavlov's dog salivating at the sound of a bell.

I think what we have to consider in our lives is where we spend our attention, as it is the only currency we have control over. We can pay attention to all kinds of things, and where we spend our attention, is not only going to dictate what we learn, but also how we feel about our experience.

My daughter is approach eight, and it is these kinds of playground experiences that will help shape her into an adult. How she experiences the world as an adult is also going to be affected by how she associates herself in the world today, and if we spend our early years identifying with what people call us, and what people think of us, we are are likely to end up in a spiral of pain, constantly chasing the approval of others, just so they call us something we want to hear.

The words we love, are not love itself.

They are just different sounds.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]