MasterSelf Year One Page 6

  “If I try really hard and take my time, I can explain what I’m talking about.”

  Unconscious Competence-

  “I don’t have any trouble getting my point across to others.”

  Unconscious incompetence is where you and I are at in regards to anything we don’t know that we don’t know how to do. This is usually accompanied by denial- “I know how to talk, why should I learn to communicate? I talk to people all the time.” Until we accept that we have the room to improve and that improvement is valuable, we won’t move to the next step.

  Conscious incompetence is admitting you have a problem- “I could be communicating better, but I don’t know how.” It may be hard at times to accept that we don’t know, but doing so is the only way to improve. A man who knows everything has nothing to learn- a man who knows nothing can learn anything. The difference is perspective, and an openness to improve. Once you’ve accepted that you’re not as good at communicating as you’d like to be, the next thing to do is to accept that it’s your responsibility to communicate your ideas in a way that they can be understood. If the person you’re talking to doesn’t get it, blame yourself- because blaming the other person is neither productive nor completely accurate.

  I’ve heard a number of people say things like, “watch what you say, words have power,” or “words are like magic,” and even though it seemed odd at first, I realized there was something to it.

  Yehuda Berg had this to say:

  “Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”

  Think about it: there is a perfect combination of words in a certain order that can persuade anyone to do anything, feel anything, think about anything. Really think about that- right now, you’re reading a combination of words that I have written down with the purpose of making you think about what I want you to think about- and if you’re reading this, it’s working.

  Words are how we transmit our thoughts between separate minds. If that’s not some kind of magic power, I don’t know what else could be.

  So where does that leave you? You have to become conscious of your deficiencies in communication, and with that knowledge, conquer it. However, to master communication, you have to understand your audience- because you need to arrange your words in such a way that they’re perfectly tailored to the person you’re speaking to. You need to know yourself well enough to explain who you are and what you believe, and you need to know your audience well enough to know the way that they think.

  It is not the easiest task in the world, but it’s certainly something that you can accomplish if you put your mind to it. It’s worth it.

  If words are power, then communication becomes a force for revolution.

  I’ll leave you with a quote from Gautama Buddha:

  “Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.”

  Real Talk, II: The Magic of Words

  In this edition of Real Talk, we’re going to be getting into words, your brain, and the fact that semantics are much more important than you’ve ever known. Sounds crazy? Maybe- but stick around and you might just learn something.

  Think about a word that you know that has more than one synonym. Actually, if you can, think of the word you know with the most synonyms. Now, this is another one of those times where I can’t guess what you’re thinking about, but let’s pretend like I can.

  Whatever word you came up with has a number of words that share the same meaning- that’s what synonyms are, right? Ask yourself- are all the meanings exactly the same? Take ‘happy,’ for example. Is there a difference between ‘happy’ and it’s synonyms, ‘cheerful,’ ‘delighted,’ ‘satisfied,’ and ‘carefree?’ Of course there is- that’s why we have synonyms in the first place. You might be ‘satisfied’ after a big meal, but you might be ‘delighted’ to hear that someone cooked you that meal in the first place. Or maybe, you’re ‘cheerful’ because you love cooking, or ‘carefree’ because you don’t have to cook?

  All of these differences may seem subtle, but imagine someone told you the meaning of life is to be ‘happy?’ What kind of happy should you be? If you don’t know the semantics of what that person is talking about, how can you be sure that you understand them?

  Interestingly enough, the word with the most synonyms in the English language is ‘drunk.’ Not only does it have the Guiness World Record, there’s also a book about it for whatever reason. I found that to be both comical and very surprising, although after thinking about it, there are so many different words I can think of immediately that describe different types of drunk, different drunk people, and so on. For example, there’s a difference between being ‘tipsy’ and being completely ‘trashed.’ You may want to get ‘wasted’ but not ‘blackout,’ and you may end up only being ‘buzzed’ instead of getting ‘smashed.’ Maybe you were ‘hammered,’ ‘blitzed,’ ‘destroyed,’ ‘housed,’ ‘lit,’ ‘shitfaced,’ ‘sloppy,’ or ‘three sheets to the wind?’ That one’s a phrase, I guess, but still a classic.

  Let’s bring it back to some degree of seriousness- you may have heard that the Eskimo people have 50 words for snow. Why do you think that is? Imagine the difference between hiking through a bit of frost and trudging through a few feet of deep, icy packing snow? That could be life or death- and that’s where semantics become important.

  Think about yourself- if you’re like me, you think in words. Some people think in pictures, though, and that’s probably worth an article in itself. If you think in words, what you can think about is limited by your vocabulary and your understanding of semantics. If you don’t know the difference between ‘rational self-interest’ and ‘selfishness,’ you might think it’s wrong to do things that benefit you. If I don’t know the difference between ‘squeeze’ and ‘compress,’ I might misunderstand the instructions to give CPR- and someone could die.

  Words are the mediator between us and our environments.

  When we think, we categorize different ideas into concepts, like ‘tree’ vs ‘bush,’ or ‘apple’ vs ‘orange.’ Imagine trying to get someone to get you a pear from the store if you only had the word for fruit? It wouldn’t work very well. On top of that, when we combine these concepts, represented by words, we can make new concepts and new words or phrases. Not every ‘salad’ contains ‘fruit,’ and ‘fruit’ doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with ‘salad,’ but when we combine the words into ‘fruit salad,’ we’ve created a new concept.

  This may seem fairly simple, but take it a step further- it’d be hard to understand the economy if you couldn’t differentiate between ‘micro-’ and ‘macro-’ ‘economics,’ and it would be impossible to understand the idea of color if we couldn’t tell the difference between ‘red’ and ‘blue,’ or ‘blue-green’ and ‘bluish-gray.’ Your vocabulary is directly related to your ability to distinguish between different concepts, and by improving your vocabulary and building discipline with your semantics, you can learn to see the world more accurately.

  The more disciplined and specific you can be with your use of words, the better you will be able to get your point across. A bad teacher speaks in a language only he or she understands, a good teacher speaks in a language his or her students will understand, but a great teacher speaks in a language that anyone can understand. Organize the words you use and you will straighten out your thoughts- expand your vocabulary and you will widen your perception of the world.

  Real Talk, III: The Logos and the Sacred Word

  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

  -John 1:1 (NASB)

  This is the phrase that opens the fourth canonical gospel, that of John. The ‘Word’ is the accepted translation of the Greek word �
��λόγος’ (logos,) which, aside from word, can be translated to mean ‘reason’ or ‘cause,’ and forms the basis for the word ‘logic.’ Remember this, we’ll come back to it in a bit.

  The brilliant but strange ethnobotanist Terence McKenna spent a large part of his career studying psychedelics and their role in primitive societies. One of his theories is referred to as the “Stoned Ape” hypothesis, or the idea that early hominid species evolved in the manner that they did as a result of symbiosis with the naturally-occurring psychedelic ‘Psilocybe Cubensis’ mushrooms in their environment. I won’t go too far into this theory (which is fascinating but fairly out-there,) the important aspect to note is the fact that at higher doses of psychedelics, a symptom exhibited is ‘Glossolalia,’ (more commonly known as ‘speaking in tongues.’) McKenna theorized that this glossolalia, which stimulates the language-forming centers of the brain, would have led to the development (or enhancement) of primitive language.

  While I would recommend taking everything McKenna says with a grain of salt, let’s assume that his theory is correct in the instance of language development. I personally hypothesize that the glossolalia arises as an attempt to explain the subjective experiences brought on by psychedelics to others. There’s a famous (but slightly inaccurate) quote stating “that 55% of communication is body language, 38% is the tone of voice, and 7% is the actual words spoken.” While not perfect numbers, the important takeaway is that a huge component of communication is nonverbal, and a large amount is tonal.

  This is likely the result of the fact that humans have had to communicate for much longer than we’ve had spoken language. Imagine the human experience pre-language (or the use of very simple language, like grunts or other significant sounds.) You would communicate primarily through facial expressions, posture, gesture, hand signals, and simple sounds like shouts and cries. However, there’s only so much that could be conveyed. Now, imagine having a profound (potentially religious or spiritual) experience without the capacity to explain it to others in the nonverbal language you know- it would be impossible. Thus, glossolalia- the attempt to build on the small amounts of vocalization and tone of voice developed into the primitive language of mankind.

  Now, the development of language is all well and good- but if you’re piecing together what I’ve discussed in the last part of the series, you may have already guessed where we’re headed. As I said before, I am the kind of person who thinks in words- my thoughts are a silent internal monologue. Now, imagine being a creature that previously lacked words and now developed the capacity to think in them? It would be a profound and completely separate experience from what you had prior- and it is certainly a one-way trip. You can’t just stop thinking in words once you’ve started.

  Where once the nonverbal language was a form of communication between two separate beings, now it becomes an internal, private process. On top of that, now you have the capacity to think of things that don’t currently exist. The development of the ‘Word’ marks the true birth of Mankind. McKenna himself believed that the origin of the story of the Garden of Eden had its roots in the ‘forbidden fruit’ that was psychedelics.

  Is that really so far-fetched? Let’s imagine that the Genesis story is a mythologized form of history. In the original Jewish texts, the race of Man is called ‘Adam Kadmon,’ which translates literally to ‘primordial man.’ Adam Kadmon was created before Adam, the first man, (literally translated from Adam Ha-Rishon,) who was fashioned individually from dust. I think this is significant to note- and often ignored. Whereas the race of Man existed, here we see that the first true Man was in fact somehow different as a result of his direct creation in the image of God.

  Now, let’s return to the start. We’ll imagine here that Adam being made in the image of God meant that the first true Man was made in the image of the Logos, or the Word. This distinguishes the early hominid race from the first Homo Sapiens by showing that Adam was the first man capable of true language.

  If you’ve read my article about Solomon and the structure of the mind, you’ll remember that in my conception of the mind, the true core of what constitutes the Self or consciousness is separate from the other components of the brain. In that vein, we can imagine that Adam, the first true Man is the first person to possess consciousness.

  (Now, where the prohibition from God against eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge fits into this narrative, I am not sure. It’s interesting to consider, however, that element of the story has always seemed to be more of a metaphor for the loss of innocence than a historically analogous element.)

  At this point, the first conscious Man has eaten of the fruit and gained the capacity for thought constrained to the medium of language. This is significant, and in this conception represents the ‘Fall.’ Because the mind and thoughts of Man are now constrained in language, whatever state existed prior is now completely inaccessible to him. (I believe the Buddhist idea of striving to achieve ‘no-mind’ are likely attempts to reach this pre-language state.)

  The introduction of the Word to the human experience is where individuality and the self originate. With language now an internal activity, the internal experience of Man develops. Personality and private thoughts are now a reality- and from private thought, it would seem that knowledge of good and evil arise. Whereas prior to the Word, experience was immediate, now Man’s existence is mediated through language before he processes it. Through this gap, Man enters the flow of time- now aware that there is a difference between the persistent Self of conscious experience and the transient events that happen. Before, life was likely timeless- and you can imagine this if you’ve ever experienced ‘flow’ or have been ‘in the zone.’

  This is the reason that the Word is sacred. The development of language is what separates us from all of the other creatures on this planet. Through the Word, we can convey things that before could only be imagined- and through this conveyance our ideas can be brought to life. As you read this, you process and conceptualize ideas that otherwise would never have left the confines of my mind. Through the Word, we understand and experience the world.

  Organize or Die: 5 Steps to Get It Together

  For most of my life, I have been the least amount of organized that one could imagine a person being. I used to struggle to get any work done, and when I did, it was almost always at the last minute, or even late. Maybe you can relate? However, sometime between the beginning of MasterSelf and now, I have learned the value of organization and decided to get it together. (For those of you who know me, I know, I can’t believe it either.) Now, I get household chores done, write a few articles a week, and still have time to have fun and binge-watch Altered Carbon on Netflix. (You should definitely watch it, that show is awesome.)

  How did I do it? All it takes is these five steps.

  The first thing you must do to get organized: admit that you have a problem.

  When I first started working on the site, I figured it would be enough for me to just write when I felt like it and work on the page when I had time. I quickly learned that that was not the case. Sometimes, you don’t want to do the things you’re supposed to do. If you don’t schedule worktimes, it’s far too easy to run out of time or forget to work. First accept that you are not organized and that you, at your current level of organization, will not be able to get everything done that you want to. Once you do that, you can start to analyze the root of your issues and outsmart yourself and your procrastinatory habits.

  Next, you must figure out your ideal work environment.

  I get easily distracted, and it happens more often than not that when my roommates come home from work, I’ll lose my train of thought completely. It’s easy to get peer-pressured out of working, willingly or not. There is a trick to this, however. When I first moved to Reno, I was living in a tent in the desert, and the only wi-fi I could get access to was at Starbucks (or Barnes and Noble.) This turned out to be a good thing- because the only thing you can do at a coffee shop is get c
offee and use wi-fi, it became the ideal place to write.

  Even now that I am living in a house with wi-fi, I still take the time on my days off to go to Starbucks for a few hours and write. Where I once had writers block, now my brain knows that when I sit down with an iced americano, I’m already in work mode. The key here is to designate a location, Starbucks or otherwise, where you will only do work and nothing else. When I was in school, I found that the best place to do homework was the silent room in the library- primarily because there is nothing else you can do in there besides read. Find your ideal work location and isolate yourself there.

  The third step towards organization is to schedule everything.

  I have large amounts of time at work to think about interesting things to write about or other ideas for MasterSelf, but too often I end up forgetting them by the time I sit down to write. The antidote to this is to use a scheduling system. The MasterSelf team uses Asana, a great group tasking and scheduling program. On the other hand, one of our team members uses an old-school paper planner. Find what works for you. The benefit of the scheduling system is most obvious when I can’t think of something to do. With Asana, I have a list of article ideas, website tasks, and other random thoughts organized like post-it notes in columns, so I can always have something to work on.

  For the fourth step, we have the most intimidating of all things- deadlines.

  Throughout my life, I have been a notorious procrastinator. I always hated deadlines, and if I had an assignment, more often than not you would find me doing it the night before.

  However, in the real world, no one cares if you get your shit done or not.

  After a certain point, your parents, teachers, or boss won’t hover over your shoulder reminding you to get things done. With that freedom comes a burden, however, and with the added pressure, procrastination can be deadly. If you don’t get your chores done on time, maybe you get grounded- but forget to pay your bills or complete a work assignment, and you’re going to have a bad time.