Reading the title of the article, you may wonder what is it that she is going to write about today. Well, off late, I was troubled by the lack of being in touch and feeling the warmth of friendships in life inspite of being in touch with people 24*7. Besides the jungle of gadgets and tech-stuff meant to keep us connected forever was really getting onto me. That's when a conversation dawned in my mind with a very intelligent and impressive gentleman in his fifties who actually taught me a very important lesson. Also it sparked the need to explore other forms of communication in life. What I want to say is how futile the words are as a means of conveying one's thoughts and mind, but ironically I have to use the crutches of words and only words to convey the same. I am not disrespecting the power of words here, but what I really want to stress on is that how the lack of other dimensions of a conversation make the words seem powerless.
“So... How attractive do you find British men? Fancy anyone
yet?” He said while sitting across the kitchen counter, sipping on the mug of
beer, while I was clearing the dishes from the dinner table and loading the
dish-washer. “Well, it’s very different for me. I have never actually dated
anyone ever. I don’t know the dating rules etc. And besides I am very awkward
in creating first impressions”, I replied while wiping the kitchen counter with
a damp cloth. “Oh, come on its not that difficult. You are a beautiful and
smart girl and you are well spoken and sweet. I’m sure you’d have guys swooning
over you. You just have to have an expressive body language”, he said. He added
saying, “It takes one tenth of a second for a person to create a first
impression which is the lasting impression. You see someone sitting at a bar or
in a tube, glancing at you. You look at the person, if he looks healthy
(physically and mentally), is dressed well, smiles, and seems confident and you
find the person attractive as well, sit up confidently, and give him a warm
smile. It goes a long way. It conveys to the person that you are open for a
conversation and the next moment you will find him -sitting next to you,
chatting to you.” ‘Beep-Beep’ rings the dish-washer. I bend over to unload the
dishes and start wiping them and arranging them in the cabinets while pondering
over what had been said and replied, “May be you are right. I’m usually so
tightly wound up that I forget to smile at all. I think I will try what you
said.” And then I smiled. “See there it is”, he said with a wink and went to
the lounge to watch his usual favourite TV show.
But Communication is not just verbal. Two-thirds of all our
communications is nonverbal. The parameters by which we interpret them are
visual cues that include body language (kinesics), distance (proxemics) and
physical environment (haptic or touch) and speech characteristics like the rate
of speech, the pitch, volume, the tone (paralanguage). And the most powerful
factor is oculesics, which are the actions of your eye, like looking into the
eye or away, dilatation of pupils, blank stare or playful wink, sensual glance
or a sympathetic look. They reveal the most about what you intend to convey.
It is such an interesting science. Usually our brain is
smart enough to pick up obvious clues of these non-verbal communications. They are
very primitive. They don’t impede communication at a primitive level. Imagine
yourself in a foreign land where you don’t know the local language or customs. But
it is this non-verbal means of communication that will help you make ‘the
connect’ with the people. They are what we would describe as a Vibe. You may
have said or heard it a number of times that a certain person gives out a
positive vibe to me or vice a versa. Well, when you look back and notice, it’s
probably because the person has had a relatively open body language to you, has
been physically at a comfortable proximity to you. Maybe you find the pitch of
their voice and the tone of their voice soothing. Their eyes, and the pupils
which if and when dilate, give out a positive vibe, which is a neural response
to the happy chemical released in their brains. There is a reason why they tell
you, your eyes are the window to your soul.
“You don’t speak the language, the Language speaks you.”
So, when you get an idea in your mind, a form of energy is
created. (I know Mr Newton says energy
is neither created nor destroyed, but just a figure of speech). It will release
the chemicals in your brain forming neural pathways or circuits. (It is a fine
balance of the Happy and Sad chemicals called Agonists and Antagonists in your
brain). Now the brain is clever and can formulate and decide the words that it
may want to use to convey a thought but these chemicals will basically govern
the non-verbal means of communication. It is very difficult to alter these
neural pathways or circuits. Thus, it is known that it’s easy to lie by verbal
means of communication but more difficult to do so by non-verbal means.
Such is the complexity of the action called Communication. The existence of a mechanism that constantly encodes and decodes messages, involuntarily, subconsciously and not verbally with a human being is a fascinating process. This nonverbal communication might be between two human beings, human and animal, human and nature, human and stimuli. We tend to take the gift so lightly but come to sit and ponder over it and it
would make you realise what a powerful tool it is. It will also make you
realise the futility of the over-abuse of the social media and the other forms
of communication that surpass the non-verbal cues. No listening to their
voices, no squeals of laughter, no snorting, no slaps on the back, no
handshakes, no hugs, no whispering secrets in the ear, no rolling of the eyes
to show disinterest, no cringing of the nose to show disgust, no playful wink
to team up and tease a friend. There is so much that is missing… Where are the
rest of the dimensions, the kinesics, the proxemics, the oculesics and the
paralanguage, the touch, the feel…???
