Podcast 40 - What Do You Really Want?
December 14th, 2007 by Richard CockrumWords fascinate me. In another life I might have been semanticist. But in this life, like many of you, my love for and fascination with words is primarily practical, not theoretical.
Words are the signs and symbols we use to formulate and manipulate our world. We use words to distill percept into concept. We use them to communicate, to rationate, to rationalize, to build relationships and to destroy them. We use them for both analysis and synthesis. Without a symbol system such as words embody, it is difficult to imagine what we would be like as a species.
But words, the verbal representations of our minds, aren’t all we are or have. In many ways, they are as much a barrier to communication as a vehicle of it.
A few weeks ago I talked about words and music. Words are the head. Music is the heart. Too often we listen only with our heads, ignoring the heart. Words have meaning, but the meaning they convey is only a small part of what we want to express. By themselves they are only a map pointing at something else. We have to listen to ourselves, we have to listen to those around us, with our hearts as well as our heads, to get an inkling of what we are really trying to communicate.
This episode of the Shards of Consciousness podcast is based on a post I wrote in February, 2007 called What Do You Really Mean? What Do You Really Want?.
If what you hear is useful to you, subscribe to the Shards of Consciousness podcast through iTunes or the feed. Tell your friends about us. Let me know what you think.
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Corey&Cosmo - We�re All Stars - Transcontinental Experiment Remix
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December 19th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Hello Rick:
I enjoyedthe combination of music and words. Words can be ambiguous and we often miss the true meaning. We compund the problem if we don’t pay attention to the speakers’ body language.
Thank you, also for visiting Tune up your EQ. You’re welcome anytime.
December 19th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Hello Galba,
I’m glad you enjoyed it. Words are, by themselves only half a message at best.
I was happy to visit Tune up your EQ. The thing I like about MyBlogLog is the opportunity to see who visits.
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:26 am
[…] After pruning back my podcast listening, I’m down to three that I still listen to regularly - the Alan Watts Podcast, the Audio Dharma Podcast, and Rick Cockrum’s Shards of Consciousness Podcast. This week, Rick really got me thinking about both my own goals and how I perceive others with his exploration of What Do You really Want. […]