Communications Breakdown

[sooZen]

Communications Breakdown
6/19/11 06:14 am

I have been thinking a lot about how we communicate with each other. There is the written word, word of mouth, and non verbal type communications. Like with dogs, I don't talk a lot to my dogs, believe it or not. I mean not like I would communicate with other humans.

Some animals appreciate our babbling, especially if they are delivered in a soothing or encouraging tone. They know when we are upset or angry or mad and don't like it much, but they get the drift of where we are at. They are able to read our body language much better than even we are aware of.

And this is the day of mass communications, everything happens in a moment and no longer do we read it days or weeks or even months after the event. We are here now, so to speak, as it happens. (How zen is that?) And so a lot of the really fine arts of communications are being lost. I mean, how many of our children or their children know how to write in cursive, for example. How many young people are taught to send a card of thanks, a birthday greeting sent over long distances, or an invitation to an event? It is all evolved into electronics, gadgets, quick (make it quick!), 140 characters or less, punctuated with "lol's" and "brb's".

Oh, not that I believe this should change (I am not the arbiter of change, no sirree!) but it does give an elder pause, especially since I grew up learning the fine art of communications, beautiful handwriting, journal-ling, and then occasionally sending a card or two to show my care, love and concern to whomever is lucky enough to be in my close circle but far enough away to appreciate the gesture.

Verbal communications, I am finding at this late age, are really tricky. I mean I have lived with a mate for going on 40 years and he still doesn't know what I am talking about a good deal of the time. Really. Either he has learned to tune me out as I am (he perceives) always blathering or bitching or something he finds interrupting or distressing to his peace of mind or something akin to that. I am frustrated that I have to repeat something I said only moments before because he doesn't listen to me. And honestly, I am witty and endlessly fascinating at least in my estimation! I only half jest here as I make me laugh all the time. Not that he doesn't make me laugh, he does, frequently, but we speak a totally different language. I might as well be speaking Navajo and he Japanese and trying to understand what each other is saying.

Now tell me, is it because we are different sexes? I am beginning to actually believe this. Is it because he has a penis and I have a vagina? Is there some separation in communication that occurs because of levels of hormones? He is stimulated by totally different things than I am and vicey versy. But I am getting off the path (it's okay) and the point I was getting at and that may be the crux of the communicating issue is I can go down any old path, like the movie "UP" where the dog is constantly distracted by the squirrel when he is trying to talk. (If you haven't seen the movie, I apologize for the analogy and encourage you to do so, it is a great movie!) My girlfriends know exactly where I am going and follow the conversations easily but men (I know, I am generalizing but that is what I am experiencing) are baffled and make comments like, "I thought we were talking about Obama and now you are talking about souffles?"

Now I do have girlfriends that are one tracked when it comes to conversation and will let me go off the path and then just continue on where we left off in the first place but they are rare. (That is the problem with generalization but like I said, they are rare in my experience.) And I have met men that are just as willy nilly, path wanderers as I am and they too are rare (and refreshing!)

And as endlessly interesting as I find my conversations, my mate doesn't, at least, I don't think he does. He will not seek out anything I write (he most likely won't read this, even though he thinks he is interesting too and what he writes is of utmost import) I tend to find his favorite subjects boring or teeth gnashing to no end that I can see. What is happening in the world is not nearly as important to me as what is happening to the mockingbird singing in my yard or something new flowering or "stuff like 'at." (A southern expression that both of us use and understand...)

Not that we don't communicate or have a great and wonderful relationship. We do! But there is not a day that goes by that one or the other of us doesn't experience frustration with the process of trying to understand what the other person is actually talking about. This is a conversation (bear with me) that we had yesterday after I took a nap.

Me: "I had a dream about our dog Chang, a really weird dream." (Note: Chang has vision problems from a poisoning in puppyhood.)
He: (playing a video game in the same room) "Uh, oh yeah?" He barely looks up and doesn't turn in rapt attention as the game is still foremost, and more important at the moment.
Me: "Yeah, I dreamed he had one eye with the pupil really dilated and the other like a pinpoint, you know, like a cartoon dog you see. One eye big and one eye small."
He: He finally turns around and stares at me like I said a meteor had hit the house. "A cartoon dog? What cartoon?"
Me: Wondering what he is talking about as I am now sure he is doing the same. "Not any cartoon, you know, where the dog has one pupil bigger than the other and it is all wonky looking!"
He: "Wonky?" Like this is a word I have never used before and doesn't compute. "You mean like the dog in Little Rascals that has that black spot on one eye?"
Me: Getting really frustrated now as he is totally not getting what I am getting AT, "NO, that is a black spot over the eye, I am talking ABOUT THE PUPILS! Do you know what pupils are?"
He: "Yes, of course, it is the black spot in the center of the eye" Wondering why I am so frustrated, I am sure. "What about it?"
Me: "Never mind, forget it!" as I watch him turn back to his video game.

Phone rings and he answers, it is a really dear girlfriend of ours and he chit chats a bit and then hands the phone to me.

Me: "Hi!, I had a really strange dream about Chang! He was like one of those cartoon dogs with one pupil big and one a pinpoint"
She: "Wow, wonder what that meant? Perhaps you have been worried about his eyesight again"
Me: "Do you know what I meant about a cartoon dog?" Still frustrated by my recent conversation with him. "I mean, do you know what dog I am talking about?"
She: "Of course, a dog with a crazy expression, one eye bigger than the other." Of course.

Now maybe this is just my mate or maybe any dude would wonder what the hell I was talking about or maybe he just doesn't care what "his woman" was babbling on about because it had nothing to do with politics or video games. Maybe. I really don't know. Do you? In fact, I am finally learning that what I do or say has very little to do with his interests unless I am talking about his favorite subjects, which are him, his art, his cooking, his view on the world or his button that is coming off his shirt and whether or not the newscaster has "great tits!".

[judih]

some conversations just don't ever get to the same intersection - and others can with a little steely will and firm but reliable memory of the original point.

i think the major obstacle in that particular situation was the video game engagement prior to your need to describe the dream. Video games from what i've seen (and we don't have them in our house, but i've seen them at my brother's) are totally engrossing and the fact that a player notices that a conversation has been initiated is a compliment to the initiator.

is it a girl thing? not necessarily. i think it's a wavelength thing. Some females don't have a clue how to interpret my thought processes, while my partner for the most part does. But when he does or when a few of my girlfriends do, i'm in heaven. Every time (or any time) i link with someone else, i'm happily surprised!

[sooZen]

ahh, thanks for the perspective judih, I appreciate it!!! Actually though, he does tend to tune me out frequently, not by design but self preservation maybe? I do tend to prattle on.

Because most of our friends (in close proximity) tend to be women, and many of them express the same frustration (about men), I guess that is partly how I reached the conclusion expressed but am open to the "wavelength" theory as sometimes we certainly are on that track. (I should say "frequently"!)

But for sure, I have girlfriends (as I mentioned) that have no clue what the heck I am going on about! They are mostly, still friends, despite my meanderings and tendencies. (Good thing!) It is quite wonderful when the trains (of thought) arrive at the station together. A truly happy surprise. Blessings indeed...

[one of those jerks]

I know a lot about paranoia being raised as a Jew in the 1940's. I am still crazy jack son of crazy mike but thanks to my sisters I am a better man. I got to pity the man without sisters or female friends. I don't know why I like women so much, I suppose it is because they are not men.

SO anyway!
just put this down to that. I am sitting here thinking about who is writing that stream. Is it you or your better half? Now a statement like that sure calls for an emoticon, what to use?
a
or a
I think I will use hester's favorite
a
because all that matters to me is how i reply
if Cecil had written the stream would I reply any differently than I am to you?
I don't think so. At least I hope not.

Diamond Lil, my beloved sister in law, a fair skinned woman gets red when my brother does not wear his hearing aid at the dinner table. He wears it a work but not at home. I usually can communicate with him okay with out it, but for some reason it is harder for him to hear the higher voice of a woman. His hearing loss cause by the sound of jet engines. Just wondering about that don't know it it is true. What is true is Diamond Lil takes it as an offense when he does not use his hearing aid when talking to her.

On the other hand The Bear, my beloved brother in law is almost totaly deaf, nothing to do but shout. My sister has to repeat you would not believe how many times before he hears her. Hard not to wind up shouting at him.

The jitterbug and his wife have a perfect marriage, you would not believe me if I told you about it. Cecil was skeptical.

Taken me a long time and still away to go, but I have learned to listen to understand my baby sister's conversation, the circuitous wanderings that used to baffle my grey straight head linear thoughts
many times i start to blurt but restrain myself and hear her out, the circuitous routes she takes is really her way of looking at all the facets of a situation,


_________________________________________________________________

Intelligence In Men And Women Is A Gray And White Matter


While there are essentially no disparities in general intelligence between the sexes, a UC Irvine study has found significant differences in brain areas where males and females manifest their intelligence.

The study shows women having more white matter and men more gray matter related to intellectual skill, revealing that no single neuroanatomical structure determines general intelligence and that different types of brain designs are capable of producing equivalent intellectual performance.

“These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior,” said Richard Haier, professor of psychology in the Department of Pediatrics and longtime human intelligence researcher, who led the study with colleagues at UCI and the University of New Mexico. “In addition, by pinpointing these gender-based intelligence areas, the study has the potential to aid research on dementia and other cognitive-impairment diseases in the brain.”

Study results appear on the online version of NeuroImage.

In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men. Gray matter represents information processing centers in the brain, and white matter represents the networking of – or connections between – these processing centers.

This, according to Rex Jung, a UNM neuropsychologist and co-author of the study, may help to explain why men tend to excel in tasks requiring more local processing (like mathematics), while women tend to excel at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions in the brain, such as required for language facility. These two very different neurological pathways and activity centers, however, result in equivalent overall performance on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as those found on intelligence tests.

The study also identified regional differences with intelligence. For example, 84 percent of gray-matter regions and 86 percent of white-matter regions involved with intellectual performance in women were found in the brain’s frontal lobes, compared to 45 percent and zero percent for males, respectively. The gray matter driving male intellectual performance is distributed throughout more of the brain.

According to the researchers, this more centralized intelligence processing in women is consistent with clinical findings that frontal brain injuries can be more detrimental to cognitive performance in women than men. Studies such as these, Haier and Jung add, someday may help lead to earlier diagnoses of brain disorders in males and females, as well as more effective and precise treatment protocols to address damage to particular regions in the brain.

For this study, UCI and UNM combined their respective neuroimaging technology and subject pools to study brain morphology with magnetic resonance imaging. MRI scanning and cognitive testing involved subjects at UCI and UNM. Using a technique called voxel-based morphometry, Haier and his UCI colleagues converted these MRI pictures into structural brain “maps” that correlated brain tissue volume with IQ.

Dr. Michael T. Alkire and Kevin Head of UCI and Ronald A. Yeo of UNM participated in the study, which was supported in part by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

About the University of California, Irvine: The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked public university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,400 faculty members. The second-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3 billion.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 100142.htm

___________________________________________________________________

I suppose we are talking about different things here. But maybe not, you communication, me the brain and how it communicates and the different intelligence(s) of male and female brains.

Do remember when two litchicks were trashing each other on litkicks and Cecil talked into the the middle of it as a peace maker?

boy oh boy did they let him have it.
As I remember the incident one woman thought the other had been cruel to a young man. She was Hard hearted Hannah the vamp of Bowery.

There is a communication that baffles me, when I was just a powerless little jackster and women owned my ass I would feel like I was in a cage full of tigers when the women in my family argued with each other. I had not a clue to what they were fighting about. Now that is where I watch my step with my sister when she is feuding with another woman in the family. I try just to listen and feel for her but not pour gasoline on it by just agreeing with her. I am just her brother, not her husband.

nice stream soozen

[constantine]

wonky?

[stilltrucking]

sorry about the avatar and user name soozen, there is a good story behind it I will post it later. Has to do with a little girl, just barely able to walk a toddler I guess maybe a little older , she came over to me in a truck stop when I was kneeling down to look at something. She started flailing and wailing on me with her fists, with all the tiny might in her body. The blows hurt so bad I had to smile, and everyone laughed.

judih wrote

... the fact that a player notices that a conversation has been initiated is a compliment to the initiator.

yes

on a personal
it takes a steely will
to stay out of a conversation I hardly understand

best thing I ever read on communication was a little book called The Human Use of Human Beings.
I read it forty years ago when I used to be smart, tried to reread it last year could not make heads or tales out of it. I felt like Algernon in the short story Flowers for Algernon, on which the movie Charly was based

all I remember is something that sounded like a poem
"language, communication and confustion"

I call it jam
beat back the entropy with action poetry

having my doubts about all that I wrote should I delete it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loi3gDeGTwU

[stilltrucking]

Constantine wrote : wonky?

me too

[the mingo]

Dino ya busted me up!

[the mingo]

Hey soo - just what the hell are you talking about anyways? I got a bit wonky after your first word. Now there are several wonkies bouncing around the inside (?) of my skull and they are making me look bug-eyed like this
My advice at this point woruld be not to let the boys in.

[sooZen]

thank you jack for the stories and the stream of a stream. I do believe that our, (men and womens) thought processes work differently as I have plenty of examples close at hand. (although, we can be, Cec and I, on the same wavelength frequently.) As for deleting posts, naw, time will do the deleting for you and it will pass into oblivion soon enough (or the second page of the posts.)

wonky?

Okay, it is actually in the dictionary (I checked.)

Mingo, If I didn't let the "boys" in, where would they go?

Whew, I am all wonked out...