There are lots of ways to communicate. We often think of honesty as a choice. Like someone can ask a question and the person answering can choose to reply without the layers of protection we build. I don't think that is true. Honesty is often time. Time allows someone to hear the words come from their mouth, feel your response and their response to your response. Feel whether those words are true. Time allows us to find other ways to communicate. Time allows you to push beyond your comfort zones and test any truth out for size.
Mya shared a wonderful clip of Derek Paravicini from a 60 minutes profile. Derek is blind, has severe learning disabilities and autism. The incredible story shows how Derek came across music and the ability to communicate through sound. His teacher talks about how other people learn to put emotion into music. He says Derek is learning about emotion through music. Eventually Derek was able to perform with a full orchestra where he headlined shows. His ability to communicate with the orchestra relies on different skills since he is unable to see the conductor. It relies on honesty.
Yesterday, Steve showed me the presentation below on 'The Empathic Civilisation'. It is the same idea Patrick was talking about in levels of moral development. Slowly but surely we have been expanding the circle of people we care about. Tribes would unite through religion. Religions could be united in nation states. There doesn't seem to be a reason why we need to stop there. Nation states are fairly young. We can go beyond that to become Global Citizens. Part of how we do that will be through music, art, dance, sport and shared festivals. As travel, social media and other methods of communication allow us to share the awesome bits of various cultures I can't see how old barriers can stand up to our ability to recognise bits of ourselves in others. And care.
No matter our disadvantages, we find ways to communicate.
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