Do you want to join me in this exercise?
When you read these words, answer yourself what it means to you, i.e, does it sound 'positive' or 'negative?'
1. Lotus
2. Go back to 1, if you didn't think of whether Lotus is sounding positive or negative, and do it, if you mean to do the exercise
3. Now, what about 'Crayons'?
4. Is 'Water' sounding 'positive' or 'negative'?
5. 'Cow-dung'
6. Doormat.
7. Attitude.
In a very inspiring conversation I had this morning, a friend of mine asked me 'Shahir, isn't 'attitude' a negative word'?
For her, it sounded a 'negative' word, whereas it clearly had a 'positive' tone for me.
Is it her fault that it sounded 'negative'? Not really ! But could she be in control, and transform it into positive. Of course!
Words and its meanings are directly related to our life and its experience, I thought! There are many among us who grew up listening to others saying about a third person 'he has an attitude problem', or statements that reflected a meaning with negativity in it. You don't want to be associated with someone who has an 'attitude' problem do you?
That, or similar experience which perhaps she is unaware of but deeply engraved in her subconscious mind, the mind created an 'internal representation' of this word meaning into a set of frames that plays a negative movie in her head in response to the visual or auditory stimulation of this word - thus prompting her brains to tick that as a 'negative' word.
I then expanded the list of words from one as in 'attitude' to six more, and presented it to Santhosh - my colleague and friend, and asked him to identify the 'charge' of each words - whether they are negatively charged or positively charged.
'Lotus', for him was positive. 'Crayon's was positive. 'Water' - what was it for you? For Santhosh it was 'negative', and my assumptions was that he had registered a negative incident associating with water; that was indeed the case, that he associated water with disasters - such as the tsunami and other such events that eventually erased the 'positive qualities' of water to overwrite its disastrous nature attributing to it a negative charge. The word 'cow-dung' was positive for him, understandably owing to the various religious and other believes associated to it. The word 'doormat' was positive for him because it keeps the 'inside of the house' clean, whereas it carried 'negative charge' for me as I associated it with how a doormat is attributed to women who are subjected to abuses by their men. And 'Attitude' for Santhosh was again 'negative' for almost the similar reasons I explained above, and for me, it was absolutely positive, for exactly the opposite reason (the commonly used statement using 'attitude' for me is perhaps 'that guy has a great attitude and we want him in our team, or, 'that's the attitude I am looking for that role).
'Attitude' for me was a benchmark rise above, and 'attitude' for them was a cliff that we must avoid from falling!!
What does it all mean?
Nothing that you didn't know before, really.
All I wanted to do by writing this down is to reflect on the whole concept of how our live's experiences - the ones that we consciously experience or unconsciously witness - are all influencing our understanding and interpretations of life - life that embodies in the words that we hear - surrounding us, and therefore the meaning we give to life!
The meaning we give to the other !
Think of it!
In the end, what you said is not what I heard !
Shahir
12 July 2011
