I want to tell you today my brief history of communication. No, I am not an expect. I am not a scholar of communication, I am just somebody who likes to think a lot about communication and the application of communication.
I am telling you this history because I think it is important for us to understand our past so that we can analyze our present and effectively change our future.
So, if you are with me, let us go back in time.
Ug and She-Ug
I want you to imagine with me a cave couple, a cave man and a cave woman. They are named Ug and She-Ug. You see, Ug and She-Ug love each other very much and they are cave people which means that they do not have spoken language.
Ug and She-Ug only have non-verbal communication (grunting, waving, flailing communication that uses body language as well as movement to describe thoughts, feelings, and desires). But one fateful day, spoken language is invented and no longer must Ug and She-Ug grunt and flail at one another. Instead, they are able to point and say things like, "fire", and "hungry" and "love".
You see, Ug and She-Ug have created a language. A language is a set of grunts that we understand to represent specific ideas. Take for example the word cow.
When I say the word cow you think of the animal cow. All that I am saying is "k" "ah" "ow" Cow.
These are just grunts that have been standardized to have meaning. That is the power of what Ug and She-Ug have done. But that is not all that they did.
Ug and She-Ug also developed written language. Written language is the embodiment in pictorial representation of those grunts.
For some people, it is not necessarily phonetic (sounds written into shapes). Other languages take ideas and translate those into shapes. What is important is that the idea is set as a standardized image. No longer must Ug and She-Ug be in the same space at the same time.
She-Ug can leave a note for Ug for when he gets home from wherever he is at saying something like, "I went out with my lady friends. We will be back home later. Please make sure the cave is clean."
That is the power of written language. You no longer have to be in the same space, at the same time, as another person in order to transmit an idea from your head into another's.
With these two inventions in the hand, these two different interpretations or uses of our language, the rest of our communication is developmentally trying to find ways in which to make it easier to use these two tools.
The Rest of History
With the development of language comes grammar (the rules in which a language is to be used and not used). Grammar allows for us to standardize even more the order in which we say these words representing thoughts, ideas, and desires.
This grammar then helps us use our written language better. It allows for us to write things in a more understandable way. That allows for us to then make larger thoughts in writing, like creating books.
We then learned how to record ourself talking so that other people could hear us talking in the future. Thomas Edison's phonograph allows for us to do that. He made a way for us to record our voice and then play it back to another person.
The radio allows for us to take our spoken voice, our spoken language, and broadcast that over a larger range. The telephone allows for us to communicate explicitly to one person or a small group of people at the same time with no respect to distance.
The postal service allows for us to write things and send them to one another without having to travel to send the actual written message. I can write a letter at my desk at home and send it to my friend in Spokane, Washington without ever having to leave the state that I am in.
Typewriters allow for us to communicate using a clear and standardized set of characters to represent our sounds or ideas. With a computer we are even able to communicate over long distances without having to leave the room that you are in.
You can send a text message to somebody who is not in the same room as you. They will receive it almost instantaneously. Instant messaging allows for us to do the same thing.
We are communicating faster using spoken word and written word to Audiences.
This is a blogcast that you are experiencing. It is a blog and a podcast. you can read it or listen to it or do those both at the same time. But, I am not inventing a new way to communicate. I am just taking these two ideas and putting them back together.
This is what we have been trying to do for the last couple of thousands of years. Humanity has been trying to find ways to communicate that are faster, easier, and cost less to a person. While this is great and we have many new ways to communicate because of it, I want to argue that our relationships are suffering because of it.
It all comes down to this one element, intentionality.
Now, you have heard at the end of each of my blogcasts I say, "thanks again for listening. Now go. Be intentional."
Over the next couple of days I am going to release a series of blog posts that will describe what intentionality is, how it works within your family, friends, co-person circles, as well as your service circles.
I want to talk about what we should do with intentionality. Does it matter? Is it important that we are intentional?
I would love to argue that the answer is yes.
My Premise
While communication has gotten easier and easier, faster and simpler, we have lost something along the way.
As it has gotten easier for us to communicate and it costs us less to do so, our intentionality has decreased. Because our intentionality has decreased, so has the quality of our relationships. I think we are blind to the effects of this.
Over the next couple of days I am going to talk about intentionality and I hope it will give you a chance to see how you can improve your relationships through it.
Thank you and have a great day.
