Do you understand universal language?

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“One morning in August 1919 seventeen-year-old Milton Erickson, future pioneer in hypnotherapy and one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, awoke to discover parts of his body suddenly paralyzed. Over the next few days the paralysis spread. ?He was soon diagnosed with polio, a near epidemic at the time. As he lay in bed, he heard his mother in another room discussing his case with two specialists the family had called in. Assuming Erickson was asleep, one of the doctors told her, “The boy will be dead by morning.” ?Within hours he fell into a coma. Erickson regained consciousness three days later. Somehow he had cheated death, but now the paralysis had spread to his entire body. Even his lips were paralyzed. He could not move or gesture, nor communicate to others in any way. The only body parts he could move were his eyeballs, allowing him to scan the narrow space of his room.

Quarantined in the house on the farm in rural Wisconsin where he grew up, his only company was his seven sisters, his one brother, his parents, and a private nurse…But one day as he listened to his sisters talking among themselves, he became aware of something he had never noticed before. As they talked, their faces made all kinds of movements, and the tone of their voices seemed to have a life of its own. One sister said to another, “Yes, that’s a good idea,” but she said this in a monotone and with a noticeable smirk, all of which seemed to say, “I actually don’t think it’s a good idea at all.” Somehow a yes could really mean no. ?Now he paid attention to this. It was a stimulating game. In the course of the next day he counted sixteen different forms of no that he heard, indicating various degrees of hardness, all accompanied by different facial expressions. At one point he noticed one sister sayingyes to something while actually shaking her head no. It was very subtle, but he saw it. If people said yes but really felt no, it appeared to show up in their grimaces and body language. On another occasion he watched closely from the corner of his eye as one sister offered another an apple, but the tension in her face and tightness in her arms indicated she was just being polite and clearly wanted to keep it for herself. This signal was not picked up, and yet it seemed so clear to him.

Unable to participate in conversations, he found his mind completely absorbed in observing people’s hand gestures, their raised eyebrows, the pitch of their voices, and the sudden folding of their arms. He noticed, for instance, how often the veins in his sisters’ necks would begin to pulsate when they stood over him, indicating the nervousness they felt in his presence. Their breathing patterns as they spoke fascinated him, and he discovered that certain rhythms indicated boredom and were generally followed by a yawn. Hair seemed to play an important role with his sisters. A very deliberate brushing back of strands of hair would indicate impatience—“I’ve heard enough; now please shut up.” But a quicker, more unconscious stroke could indicate rapt attention.

…

It was as if in his paralysis he had suddenly become aware of a second channel of human communication, a second language in which people expressed something from deep within themselves, sometimes without being aware of it. What would happen if he could somehow master the intricacies of this language? How would it alter his perception of people? Could he extend his reading powers to the nearly invisible gestures people made with their lips, their breath, the level of tension in their hands?”

Over the centuries various writers and thinkers, looking at humans from an outside perspective, have been struck by the theatrical qualities quality of social life.?The most famous quote expressing this comes from Shakespeare:

All the world's a stage

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts"

from The Law of Human Nature Robert Greene

How good are you in speaking this second language?