Not long ago I was hiking one morning and our donkeys were following me along the ranch road. One of them was very upset and braying because I did not have a horse cookie for him. He was trying his hardest to let me know that he was very upset about the situation and I am sure there were some donkey insults and profanity thrown in for good measure. This started me wondering about what we call language and how much power the spoken word really has. When you come right down to it, what comes out of our mouth is not much different than what comes out of the mouths of those donkeys. Of course some would say an ass is an ass no matter whether it has two legs or four but that is a topic for another day. The point is that humans and animals are all able to generate sounds using our vocal chords and mouths. It is up to us to assign meaning to those random sounds and create what we call language. If we do not understand a language then it has no more meaning for us than the sounds created by those donkeys.
For example:
“Younneo Sey”
“Urikm Uma Yuom”
“Du Mhan Yhu”
What do the above phrases mean to you? Nothing you say? If someone were to walk up to you on the street and say these phrases to you, what would your reaction be? If you do not speak a language, then it sounds like nothing more than a bunch of random sounds, right? Now what if I told you that one of the above phrases means “Go F#$@ Yourself” or “F#$@ Off”. Now that you know this, it changes how you would feel about the person uttering these sounds to you doesn’t it? Why? It is still the same series of sounds you heard before I told you that one of them was a profanity meant to insult you. You are probably looking back up at the three phrases right now trying to figure out which one is the profanity. Just so you know, the other two are just gibberish that I made up for this post and have no meaning at all. At least not yet! At some point in the future, someone might assign meaning to those series of sounds and that makes my point! We assign the meanings to the noises which people make called words. Before we knew that one of the phrases above was an insult, they had no meaning to us nor did they invoke a feeling in us one way or the other. We have the power to assign the meaning to a series of sounds and how we are affected by the noises made by other human beings! This also means we have the power to control how these random sounds affect us. When we allow a series of sounds to evoke a feeling in us then we are essentially giving the speaker the power to affect our mood and feelings. That is a lot of power to give away to another person.
Now if you have no respect or relationship with the person spouting a series of sounds in your direction, why should you allow it to make you angry or affect how you feel? If you don’t value the speaker’s opinion or believe what they are saying has any validity, why allow it to make you feel bad or pissed off? Remember, we assign the meaning to the sounds we call words and control how we feel about what we hear. We have the power to control how a bunch of random sounds make us feel! When we react and give credence to words from some big mouth, that we don’t respect or even know, we hand over our power to them. They achieve their goal by having us respond to their babbling and thus give them control of our feelings.
The hot button phrases being thrown around these days like homophobic, racist, transphobic, redneck, etc. are meant to do just that. They are being used as weapons to shut down any discussion by affecting how you feel and putting you on the defensive. Bottom line is if you are not homophobic, racist, transphobic or whatever the latest fad in insults being uttered these days is, then why let it have any effect on you at all? If you don’t know or have any respect for the person calling you this then it should have no more meaning to you than the sounds being emitted by a donkey. Remember an ass is an ass no matter the number of legs they have. That might be kind of unfair to the donkeys of the world now that I think about it. I could be accused of being a donkeyphobe or worse an asscist! The horror!
Now I know there is a big difference between an idea like this as a concept and actually putting it to use in daily practice. It is hard not to react and strike out either verbally or physically when someone is running their mouth at you. Believe me I know! I am an old Marine and it is not in our nature to not immediately react to an attack, no matter what form it takes. I also realize that sometimes we have no choice but to defend ourselves especially if your core principles are being maligned. I would never condone anyone taking on a victim mentality. I am only saying to pick your battles! If we do not know or respect the person who is spewing words in our direction, why allow them to affect how we feel? Why allow them to pull us into an altercation that in the long run would not be worth our precious time or energy.
It makes no difference if the speaker calls himself a critic, expert, authority or some other title. The only power that these people have is what power we allow them to have. If we don’t believe that the words coming out of someone’s mouth have any validity, then why do we consider them to be anything other than gibberish? For example, if you are an artist and someone criticizes your work, give some thought to the source before letting it affect how you feel. If the criticism is based on truth then adjust accordingly and improve your work. If not let it roll off like water on a duck’s back. This holds true no matter who you are or your field of endeavor.
So the next time someone is calling you names or running off at the mouth about your work, interests, lifestyle or anything else you can name, remember that the series of sounds that we call words are easy to make. Every animal on earth makes sounds of some kind. My donkey Fidel makes noises all the time and I am sure that to him they have meaning. But to me they are just gibberish coming from an ass. The same can be said for much of what we allow to upset us these days! It is up to you whether or not you choose to give the sounds you hear meaning and power!
Don’t give away your power!