Talking is not all

I love this quote from Humpty Dumpty that helps explain the complexity of communication, it goes like this “when I use a word it means what I choose it to mean neither more nor less”-Lewis Carroll’s ‘Looking through the Glass’. What Humpty Dumpty was saying here could not have been more wrong, communication is so complicated. It would be nice if it was a simple as choosing a word to mean what you want it to mean and having everybody understand what you're talking about or what you're meaning or even what you're feeling. However this is simply not the case. Along with verbal communication there are also many different types of nonverbal communication. Even with just verbal communication there are many different ways to express something, how you say it, or how you present it, could mean very well the opposite of what you were saying. For example, in our Laura Laura Chapter 9. It gives the example of saying I love you now depending on how you say it, it could mean something quite opposite. If you said I love you too on a whim in response back to somebody saying it to you. It could very well mean that you don’t really love that person or a least not in that moment. Or you could say with sarcasm in your voice. Now those are just the basics. Now I know what you are thinking. Communication is a little bit more complex than you thought. It just seems simple until you dive down and actually look into it. We haven’t even talked about nonverbal communication yet. Yeah, you heard me nonverbal communication and I am not talking about texting or reading or listening although those are very important too. Nonverbal communication is even more complex than verbal communication at times nonverbal communication can consist of what clothes you're wearing and how you dress. Now if you think about it, you probably didn't think what you wore communicated very much until now, or maybe it just hadn't crossed your mind or maybe it had, and you just forgot about it. I'm willing to bet that if I asked you what all the types of communication were, you probably would have left it out. It’s not a very common or talked about form of communication.  Don’t be self-conscious now you haven't been for a while about what you wear, but think about it what does your clothing tell about you? 

There are many other types of nonverbal communication, one of my favorites is facial expressions! I feel like it's very easy to tell what somebody is doing based on what their face looks like. When somebody is studying, they kind of have this very, I’m in deep concentration look on their face. Or how about when they look like they're going to blow a blood vessel? They are probably on the toilet constipated. On a more serious note, facial expressions are very hard to control. However, some people have learned to control their facial expressions in order to hide their feelings or their guilt or their lies. Along with facial expressions your eyes are very good communicators. I'm just trying to help you out here, if you really wanted to be a good liar or a good communicator, you got to know about all these different subtle things about communication. You won't be winning any poker games unless you have mastered the ability to control affectively what your face and eyes say. Needless to say that there is a lot more to communication than what meets the eye. I hope this was a little bit of an insight on how much more there is to communication than just simply talking and expressing feelings.