Primer eseja 3

“Necessity resides in the way we talk about things, not in the things we talk about.” (Willard van Orman Quine: Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, 1976)

Physiology and psychology claim that humans, as conscious beings, feel the urge to connect with other people - to share, exchange information, ideas or feelings. What separates people from other living creatures is the ability to use language to communicate in a really precise and specific way. But are the things we talk about essential parts of the acts of communication? Or does the way we exchange thoughts send us a more important message than the words themselves? Why is the way we talk about things so important? What necessities does it reflect? Can we somehow learn to notice and understand things that are “beyond” what we hear? My opinion is that the way people talk about things is more important than the things they talk about. I will try to analyze this by proving that how people speak about different things is more important to them and to the people who are listening and observing them, because the things themselves give us less information and are just a part of a wider image that needs to be seen in order to make the act of communication successful.
People are capable of considering and changing what they have to say before they actually say it. Our social intelligence and previous experience allow us to consider the consequences of things we say. This gives us the opportunity to alter our thoughts and words so that the person we’re talking to understands us in a better way or creates a better opinion about us. Our brain allows us to adapt our ideas and words so that they are acceptable for other people. This ability can be very useful, but it also gives us a possibility to lie. We have the power to control what we’re going to say and often use this power as a specific advantage. However, what we cannot control is the way our body reacts in certain situations. We cannot stop our hormones from functioning, so we can hardly hide the fact that our palms are sweaty, that we’re blushing, shaking or that our pupils are becoming bigger in certain situations. The organism does not lie, and observing its reactions can show us a lot of conditions that people try to hide.
Communication does not consist only of the things people say. It also involves a non-verbal aspect. Facial expressions and body position reveal us different feelings and attitudes that are hardly controlled because we’re not aware of them. Sigmund Freud explains them as parts of our sub consciousness – they represent “hidden” parts of our mind that affect the way we behave without us realizing it. Paying attention and learning to analyze and conclude things from other people’s behavior gives us the ability to gather information not only from what they’re saying but also from how they’re talking about something, which gives us a more objective point of view. For example, we can assume that a person is friendly and likes us if he or she is smiling and leaning toward us.
The way people talk also has a significant place and has played an important role during history.  World’s biggest leaders through centuries were often individuals who were really good speakers – they were excellent at convincing others that their ideas are special, that what they’re saying is true and that everyone should accept that and “follow” them. Although Adolf Hitler’s ideas were destructive, he was good enough at speaking to convince people that they are acceptable and gain a lot of sympathizers. It was the way he presented his thoughts and not the thoughts themselves that made people support him.
The way people talk about things was, and still is, a great inspiration for artists, especially writers. What makes them fascinated is the way people talk about things they love and the people they love – you can notice and feel that passion by the way their eyes light up, by the fact that they are capable of spending hours and hours talking about them and by the way they look at the things or people they love. Artists find observing these things more important and more inspiriting than the things people say themselves, they claim that understanding how people talk gives you a stronger impression of why something is so important to that person and how strong that person’s necessity to talk about it is.
Many people think and could claim that the thing someone is talking about  itself is the most important part of the act of communication and that it’s enough for us to simply listen and analyze sentences, I have to disagree.  Although the things we talk about are necessary for understanding each other and sharing opinions and feeling, they are not the only components of the communication.  They offer us only one sort of information, and we should gather many different kinds of information in order to be more objective and understand each other the best we can.
It all depends on how we look and things, not in the way things are themselves. Things themselves are meaningless until we give them a meaning. The way we look at things and what they mean to us can be fully understood only by understanding the necessity that stands beyond someone’s words. And that necessity reflects itself through the way we talk about something. By realizing this and learning to observe it, we become better at communicating which gives us the power to see more than most of people see, gather more knowledge and be better people. In a way, it also protects us from lies and makes us aware of people’s hidden motives which gives us the opportunity to protect ourselves from being manipulated and used in purposes that we find bad. Therefore, necessity does reside in the way we talk about things and not in the things we talk about.