#112. Language

We are truly blessed to be born in a completely technology enabled world. A world that is evolving not by the second, but by the millisecond. We have more ways to communicate with people around us than any generation has experienced before us.

We can send text messaging when we need to deliver information instantly.

We can voice call when we want to hear the voices of our loved ones

We can video call when we are clamouring to see people who are away from us.

What is common across these media is something so formative, that it is almost lost in the layers of complexity of our communication systems. And that, is language. Today, we decipher the true power of language, and see the real impact of this facet of life.

Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.

— J.K. Rowling

Language is the greatest enabler for human beings. It enables communication between human beings and/or organisations. It acts as a bridge between us, display our feelings to people around us and understand other people’s feelings as well.

Language is an extremely nuanced subject matter, and it is closely aligned to the human emotional spectrum. Let’s take a few examples.

Emotion/Degree	Low Intensity	Medium Intensity	High Intensity
Happy	Glad	Joyous	Ecstatic
Sad	Feeling blue	Sorrow	Despair
Anger	Annoyance	Irritation	Rage

Since we live in a subjective reality, I have observed that the degrees of emotions and the words we use to express the impact of those emotions has grown out of hand. I see people use heavy words to describe minor inconveniences and heavier words to puff up small achievements with the intent of winning our peers approvals.

I will give you an example.

“I was devastated when <Fill in the name> lost <Fill in the name of the reality show>”

“Nothing good ever happens to me”

“I am cursed“

“My life is a series of one traumatic event after another”

And so on..

I want to give most people the benefit of the doubt. Meaning, I think most people say such things not with the intent to emphasise these terms as the true reality of their lives. They do it because they think the person they are speaking to would apply a correction factor to the degree of impact they intend to convey.

However, and I am going to try not to go too woo-woo, but in my humble opinion, our words are a true glimpse of our state of mind in the current circumstances.

The words we use have a deep link to the biology and physiology of our bodies.

A study named “Do Words Hurt?” by Maria Richter and others, concluded that that the processing of pain-related words leads to activations within regions of the pain matrix.

In his book “Words Can Change Your Brain”, Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at Thomas Jefferson University, and Mark Robert Waldman, a communications highlighted as much that “a single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress.”

A number of clinical studies accentuate the impacts of negative self talk on children and adults. These studies denoted links of this negative self-talk to increased levels of anxiety, and hormonal changes linked to increased adrenaline and cortisol secretions.

Am I of the opinion that we should exclusively speak in positive language, solely due to the fear of the negative impacts of detrimental words?

Well, not really. A healthy expression of emotions is extremely important, especially when we start to grow older and engage in meaningful relationships. But assessing the real impact of a situation, and speaking with awareness is something I am an advocate of.

Not every bad thing in life can be catastrophic. If it were, we would not survive through them. Now, would we?

All I am trying to say is

Words are more powerful than we give them credit to be. Choose them wisely.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂