COMMUNICATION
What is communication? Is it simply an exchange of information via some means, channel or media? Or is it something more nuanced, complex and detailed.
I believe communication is about more than merely exchanging ideas, conveying needs or expressing ourselves. I see the power of communication as a means of orienting one’s self in the world.
I am going to lean on some analogies here, so bear with me.
When ships navigate the seas and their visibility is limited, or night falls and the dangers of land are blanketed in darkness, how do they navigate their way? How do they orient themselves in relation to the surrounding environment?
The answer is RADAR - acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging
Radars mounted on ships transmit and receive radio waves to ascertain the distance between the vessel radar and the object the wave has bounced or reflected back off.
The pulse of electromagnetic waves leave the radar, bounce off another vessel, land mass or isolated object, and makes its way back to the receiver to be picked up.
The speed of the wave is fixed (speed of light) and the time is measured (in milliseconds) so the distance can be calculated using the speed = distance / time equation.
Radar Screen Readout
Have I lost you yet? If not, great.
So, the radar allows the ship or aircraft to know where it is in relation to something else, whether thats a land mass, mountain, or other vessel.
What I am suggesting is that communication serves a similar function to this radar.
When I speak to someone, I send out a signal, it travels through time and space, lands in another system, and they reflect back to me something about themselves (or about me), which then cycles back into my system.
If we leave aside the details around words, meaning, tonality and all of the other fine points of communication, and merely sit with this idea of a signal, can you see how it is functionally similar to the way a radar (or sonar) is able to orient itself in relation to another thing through an exchange of information/energy?
So when you wave at a stranger as you pass each other on a country road, almost certain that there’s no chance you will ever see that person again, what are you doing it for?
“Its just nice” - well, yes, but what constitutes the niceness? What quality of niceness is conveyed by either party?
My suggestion is this, that in the mere act of simple communication, there is an exchange of energy and information between two parties that says ‘I am here, and you are there’ or alternately, ‘I know I am here because someone or something else has confirmed it through a simple gesture of communication’.
So I believe that communication, whilst also serving as the fundamental means of conveying information, affection, needs, wants and all other manner of human experiences amongst one another, is a foundational mechanism by which we orient ourselves in the ever-changing and dynamic landscape of the world.
Even the simplest form, a mere wave, a light flashed in the distance, a meeting of the gaze, is enough to provide each person with a sense of where they are and perhaps, in following, who they are.