Lost and Found

Soko sings 'My Dreams Dictate my Reality'. Dreams dictate reality? Really? Not what you say? Not what you think? Not how you act? I'll come back to this later.

Between the age of 17 and 23 I kept a handwritten diary. Hesitatingly at first. Looking for a format and words. What I learned fast was that I had to be honest looking in the mirror. Honest as in beyond "normal", "stupid", "unfair" and "acceptable". I learned to face reality, in the safe and sheltered corner of my diary. My reality and the reality of the Others. To accept and embrace - it sounds easier in retrospect than it was for me back then - the real world of individual 'homo sapiens'. To accept my own and others' jealousy, aggression, misbehaviour and all the other adjectives that don't belong to a "perfect" planet Earth. (We are citizens of planet Earth first and citizens of the Cosmos second.)

In retrospect, the above is one of the seeds that make me sensitive for fringe people. I accept all behaviour of other homo sapiens. All! Including the behaviour of killers, of sadists, of suicide bombers, of mafia, of society their free-riders. For me their behaviour is valid too. It belongs to the real world. It's real. Don't deny!

I accept reality of (dis)behaviour. At the same time I accept the laws of my country. These laws define what must and shall be punished. In punishment we trust. Realizing, accepting and embracing that these laws are culturally and historically biased.

What's my point? I think that the biggest pitfall of human communication is the 'Say-Think-Act-trap' (STA-trap).

In a perfect world the sets of Say, Think and Act are one and the same.

In a never-perfect world the sets of Say, Think and Act don't have any intersection at all.

In the real world there are intersections between the three sets. "Perfect communication" is the intersection between all three sets (colour 'yellow' in the Venn diagram). "Noisy communication" is the intersection between two sets (colour 'orange'). "Deaf & Blind communication" is the symmetric difference between the three sets (colour 'white').

Example one.  He says to an acquaintance that he will pay back the loan of 25,000 Euros as soon as possible. He thinks I'll not be able to pay back the money before I die. He borrows the loan - not telling his acquaintance - while knowing he will die in two months of incurable cancer.  

Examples two. An extremist Muslim (according to the Islam 'Taqiya' principle) says he accommodates himself to the laws of the country he lives in. He thinks I'll apply precautionary dissimulation for my plans to kill as many Islam-unbelievers as I can. He blows himself up as a suicide bomber.

Example three. He says he wants a tree in his garden. He thinks of a 50 year old oak with leaves and roots. He plants in his garden the expensive tree he thinks of.

Dreams dictate reality? Yes, your dreams. Yes, my dreams too. Yes but also what we say, what we think and how we act. Depending on the (lack of) intersections between say, think and act we have a serious communication constraint. Better: we have communication noise. Observation: I see a lot of noisy and deaf & blind communication on planet Earth.