Communication - The Art of Orchestrating Our World

Winston Churchill took over as the Prime Minister a few months into the World War 2. At that point of time, the Allied Forces had suffered major setbacks, and the threat of a successful German invasion on England was imminent.

The general mood in the political circle of England was to strike a deal with Adolf Hitler so that a great danger that was almost sure to befall on the British people could be avoided.

Even among the masses, half the population expected Britain to fight on, while a large number of people believed that "This is not our war".

Winston Churchill was personally convinced that fighting the war to the end was the best option for the British. He understood the threat that Adolf Hitler posed to the Europe, Britain and the rest of the world. He knew that appeasing Nazis would only embolden them. His commitment to the values of "liberty and democracy" inspired him to think not just in the national interest but for a global struggle for the survival of democracy which required the totalitarian regime of the Nazis to be decimated.

So, he made a note of all the points for which he wanted to enter the war, pointed out the pros and cons of each of the possible stands, and presented them to the parliament. The Members of the Parliament, esp. the Opposition, could see through his reasoning, and lent their whole-hearted support to the cause of Britain's sustained strife in the World War.

Just Kidding. It didn't happen that way at all!!!

Winston Churchill delivered three of the most iconic speeches of that era, regarded as the most stirring speeches in history.

From the touching - "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat" to the determined - "We will fight on the beaches", Churchill stirred the Parliamentarians and the masses alike, inspiring the entire nation into the unprecedented battle.

In these speeches, Churchill did not only spell out the determination of battling it out at every front in every possible condition, but he also spelt out that the infallibility of the British army, referring also to resources from the entire British Empire across the seas being available at their disposal. There was no reason, he ascertained, for Britain to fear any subjugation or defeat.

What Churchill declared was "the goal of victory, howsoever long or hard the road may be".

The impact of the speech was such that one of the members of the House of Commons asked another - "what just happened?", and the other responded - "he just mobilized the English language and sent it to the battle".

Multi-faced or Multi-faceted?

Just after this speech, Churchill is said to have muttered to his colleague -

"And we'll fight them with the butt ends of broken beer bottles because that's bloody well all we've got!"

This was a more objective assessment of the situation that Britain was in at that point of time. Of course, this could not have made a great speech. It would definitely not have created the result Churchill's speeches did.

Did Churchill really believe in the certainty of the "goal of the victory" he declared?

Did he withhold important information from his people in an attempt to push them into the war?

Was that manipulation? a subterfuge?

Was he being double-faced?

The difference between multi-faced and multi-faceted is whether we disapprove or approve a given cause or a certain person involved.

As outrageous it may sound, every single individual who has made it to the public eye, and has accomplished great things in the world, live different emotions in different context of their lives. In fact, the primary key to any success is the ability to do that.

What a successful person speaks in the public is not necessarily what he really knows or believes in, and definitely not what he practices in his individual life. Every successful speech or writing is dressed up in adorable costumes, suited to the context, that would find an acceptance and would create an impact.

The world has always been guilty of equating "eloquent communication" with "absolute truth", but is there even an alternative to that?

What about "Logic"?

Every turning point in history has been marked with a stirring speech. It is rare that any transformational decision in history was arrived at by an objective analysis of the plusses and minuses, and after deep and careful analysis of the available information.

As Human Beings, we are primarily creatures of Emotion and Bias.

We do not use logic or reasoning to arrive at a conclusion or to decide a course of action. Every conclusion and decision we make is already lurking out there, just waiting for the right time to show up.

We use logic and reasoning to justify our conclusions and decisions, which we make from various other sources, primarily our biases and emotions.

There is a reason why all great leaders have always been great orators.

A cause is great only to the extent that it is championed by an eloquent communicator.

Causes that are dismissed are not lesser causes. They are just the ones that didn't find the right crusaders.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that our world, at any given point of time, is an outcome of the nature and quality of the conversations and communication involved.

What about "The Truth"?

We often come around the philosophies about the world being "Illusion", also referred to as "Maya" in the Indian philosophy.

The concept of "Maya" is multi-layered and can be interpreted in many ways as applicable to different context. From the very deeper interpretations of the world being a projection of the one ultimate "Brahman" to its contemporary quantum-mechanics-based interpretations of a probability manifesting into existence depending on the intentions of the appearance, we could look at the illusory nature of the world around us in many possible ways.

It even boils down to a very mundane application that everything we see is a perception that is projected to us by the puppeteers of our world.

Our reality is just a reflection of how we describe it. When we narrate an event or describe an object, we are not narrating the event or describing the object, but we are describing a projection of the event or object that feels most poignant for us. Our narration and description are further filtered out by the recipients in their own ways, filtering out a lot of stuff and adding forth a lot more.

This sequence of filtering distorts not only with every "transaction" of communication, but even within our own inner world with the passage of time, acquisition of new information, and surgency of varied emotions. If we were to narrate the same event or describe the same object on a regular basis, we would find tremendous variance in what we say, not just in the choice of words, but probably even in terms of qualitative content and our actual perceptions about it. We may transition from "OMG, how could that happen?" to "what's the big deal?" in no time.

We find the world around us contradictory or paradoxical because we live under the illusory expectations of things being permanent and well-defined. We know well that our feelings, emotions, mood, perceptions, views, beliefs about anything and everything undergo a massive sea of change within moments in all possible, random, contradictory directions.

Knowledge is the Steering Wheel, not the Ignition

Unless translated to the right emotion, Knowledge or Information doesn't have the ability to prod us into action.

Once we are in action, knowledge can help us guide through the right path and keep us on the right track and rails to our destination.

Information is a dead, sterile entity with no power to stir us into action.

Any information that moves us into doing or saying anything does so by virtue of the information translating into a strong emotion.

Information Processing is only for machines and computers. It doesn't apply to human beings at any level.

It is unfortunate that while we know this to be undeniably true, we cause ourselves serious damage by dismissing these as the frivolousness and frailty of human mind and decry that things are this way - especially when we are at the receiving end of others' vacillations.

It is unfortunate that in spite of the hardest truths staring at our faces all the time, we approach communication just as a means of "information processing".

We believe that once we have "informed" the other person of a certain situation, it is obligatory on the other person to take the "right" action. And of course, the right action is always defined as the action we want others to take, or the action we believe that the other should have taken.

The entire secret of getting things moving, and for getting things moving in our favour, lies in our ability to translate information into an appropriate emotion.

This is far from an endorsement of toxic emotional drama. On the contrary, this emphasizes the sanctity of "emotions" and the need to treat and use them with respect.

The Universe and our Lives are a Constant Unfolding

Every process in our lives and in the universe is an unfolding of consciousness. Information plays a very insignificant role in getting people to take necessary actions.

Whether it's about the world order, or a large corporate machinery or our individual personal relationships, we all act in accordance to how our consciousness unfolds regarding a certain situation.

We pay very little attention to the fact that the universe is a complex dynamic of consciousness, and it takes a great amount of manoeuvring to get things move in a certain way.

Communication is the tool which allows us to execute this manoeuvre.

Communication is an extremely intricate phenomenon?- powerful and delicate at the same time.

Communication is not about expressing or informing.

Communication is not about using great words or a superfluous?language.

Communication is not about politeness, etiquette, manners, or use of proverbs, phrases, metaphors and similes, or the complexity or profoundness of the ideas expressed.

Communication is not a matter of literary adeptness.

Communication is not about impressing.

Communicaiton is not even about eloquence.

Communication is measured only through one parameter- the outcome it creates.

"I communicated very well but nobody supported me" could as well be crowned the queen of all anti-thesis. This is the best illustration of how we confuse our informational, intellectual, literary and emotional outbursts as "communication".

Communication is exactly and precisely the outcome it creates.

The Art of Orchestrating the Universe

Everything we see around us is an outcome of a sustained conversation and an effective communication of some entity.

The philosophies we live by, the values we profess, the lifestyle we flaunt, the food fads we gloat about, the causes we stand for - every single step of our life is most likely somebody's brilliant marketing and branding strategy.

There are no absolute truths in the world. The absolute truth is far too subtle to be perceived in the functioning of our real world. The absolute truth is a matter of inner perception, and while the greatest of the self-realized rishis may know it in the recesses of their consciousness, the moment it translates to words, it gets pulled down into the realm of severe inaccuracy.

Whatever we perceive in our world has no bearing with any truth.

What we may start believing as "absolute truth" is just a piece of communication that we have successfully bought into.

Communication is what creates our universe at all levels - from our personal views to our inter-personnel relationships, families, societies, communities, nations and the world - every aspect of our existence is an outcome of an interplay of rivalling communications and conversations.

As much as we may want to deny it, there is no way around it. If we want to influence the world in any way, if we want to have any say in creating the life we aspire to live, powerful communication and effective conversations are the one and the only way forward.

The art of communication is all about orchestrating the strings of the universe to create the results you want.

Through this series, we are embarking on a journey of mastering the art of orchestrating our universe. From the tuning of the individual instruments to the art of playing them, from the art of renditions of individual melodies to the art of synchronizing the instruments to create brilliant symphonies, we will explore every intricacy of the art of communication and ways to use it to create the reality we intend to.

"Play It Like a Pro"

Howsoever disdainfully we may look at it, or how much we end up denying or dismissing it, the world around us is a game, and each one of us a player.

There are broadly two kinds of players -

• Those who play their games well, and
• Those who complain that others are playing their games well.

Whether it is about the world view in general, or whether about our individual, personal lives, everything in our life is a game. Everybody around us is playing a game. We need to play ours and play it well.

If the whole universe is indeed a Maya, if the world is indeed a game,

"Let us play it like a pro!"

This series will help us explore how.

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