Remember your basic lessons.
I suppose that one cannot remember something if one has not experienced it or recognizes it as it is presented. No where is this truer than in communication between members of Humanity.
Communication is arguably the second most fundamental tool possessed by Humanity. The first is the ability to think. These two skills are always strengthened by one another.
However, these concepts are often touted as being easily understood, but when compared to the physical aspect of any common martial art what would people compare them to most likely?
Punching and kicking is what. That's horribly misunderstood.
Thinking and communicating is more akin to controlling one's own body and balancing it in order to do something as simple as sit up, roll over, or even standing up while leaning against a wall. Punching and kicking will come later in time. We think of enunciating or pronouncing words as something so simple, yet these concepts are difficult. And before we can even begin to understand them, we must form ideas in our own mind first.
We must think.
Consider all of the processes our minds must understand. Consider all of the things that we never even recognized as children but learned by repetition and mimicking those around us. For an incomplete reference to much of this, though adequate enough to get the point across, consider all of the mental work required to learn a new language after spending twenty years of your life speaking one language; and not as well as taught in schools to use.
(Do schools even teach how to communicate and understand words? Likely not the most common schools I would argue.)
So when we want to discuss ideas with others it is important to remember our basics in communication and thinking. We must be able to create focal points of each idea we invoke in our mind's eye as we think before we speak or write, and certainly as we listen to others talk and read what others have written.
Just like reading fiction eventually turns into a movie or television show in our heads when written well in conjunction with our own ability to read well, so too does the transference of ideas between individuals concerning more abstract concepts like 'morality', 'freedom', and 'empathy'.
Understanding the basics of thinking and communication will enable us to distinguish the ideas with the same or different labels invoked by others and build a common understanding of what each individual knows. Take for example the hatred and love of capitalism, an idea defined completely differently by so many people based on how they learned to explore it as an idea.
Doing that takes patience and the willingness to heavily invest your three natural sources; time, intellect, and labor.
It is costly to invest so much into one set of skills. However, the benefits of this investment are tremendous and bleed over into everything else that we do.
The most difficult choice is not if you should invest in developing your basics of thinking and communication, but with who you should invest so much of your time, intellect, and labor into.
That answer should always be yourself first. And you can do this by reading and writing. Later it is with those you are willing to invest the time to be patient with.
This allows you to get to know yourself more; and the more you know yourself, the easier it is to know and understand others because you have a reference of understanding with which to anchor yourself to as you explore the ideas from various perspectives experienced and shared by others.
-JLD
After thought:
What are your successes with communication, exploring ideas, and understanding the importance of perfecting the basics of any skills? Do you have stories about breaking down ideas and finding success after struggling with none?
These can be with anything from martial arts to mathematics to cooking and more!
Let me know your success stories in the comment section below!
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