A Universal Tongue: a short essay exploring emotions and feelings as an alternative mean of communication and self-expression
It fascinates me to observe how uncomfortable we, human beings, can be in wielding that inherent language of ours — that which we have spoken since the dawn of our species: the language of emotions and feelings. How expressive such language can be in the moments when words become obsolete, how sufficient and how full.
When feelings rise, linguistics fail. A simple shrug can say, so, so much more than a long-winded monologue. Yet, we somehow opt for the latter.
We get lost in the enticing labyrinth of our own words: sometimes lured in there by the words of others, sometimes led there by our “rational” thoughts. Pointedly, it is in their linearity that we get lost: because in trying to explain a complex 3- or 4-dimensional reality, we fall into a culprit of using a two dimensional – linear – tool of linguistics to help us do so. We try to explain, than to live through it. Often a bizarre, difficult and most of all — an unnecessary challenge.
Lately, I had found myself stumbling upon my own words — feelings and thoughts riding faster, tying my tongue in knots and making me stare up to the ceiling to find the right expression. Whether this is a reflection of my studying a completely new language — Dutch is structurally very different from English or Russian — which causes a rift in my thinking and resulting jarred communication patterns; or a general state of my mind has ramped up its complexity to the point of verbal obsoletion — I do not know, and this isn’t the focus of this short observation (and also, perhaps — it is both). But I am using it as a prompt to ponder.
The beauty of emotional language is that everyone can understand it. No matter what culture, what background you’re coming from — some subtleties translate universally — from way back when — perhaps to the fabled Babylonian fiasco. Such language encompasses and exceeds even the commonly known pointers of the body language: turn of the torso alluding to friendliness, wide eyes and dilated pupils — to attraction.
Observe the sensations we get in the presence of one another — people we may have known for decades, or those we may have just met. The cold wringing knot of aversion; or a strong, almost magnetic pull to stay in someone’s gravitational field; or a delicate alignment to the harmony of someone’s voice; or plunging through an endless tunnel of a soft gaze; and the feeling of something being “off”— are just some of the examples. And it is in their inexplicability bathed between the blurred edges, the delight over this universal tongue really lies.
I am falling more and more irrevocably in love with what it has to say.
While there is certainly emotional non-verbal communication and exchange between humans, there is an ocean of emotions from within ourselves. Those sparks of insight are that of our being responding, relating and communicating with the universe around us. Our being and essence isn’t “trying” to tell us something — it is already telling. If we quiet down, we are capable to feel something stirring. And if we quiet down long enough, we might be able to see that our being knows what to do next — as it had all along. I have been finding myself making decisions from heart, or rather, from the solar plexus — somehow that’s where my gut decisions tend to emanate and my intuition seem to reside. And, I am falling more and more irrevocably in love with what it has to say.
My default state is the utter fascination with the life around and the life within.
Curiously, in parallel to being more attuned to this rich underlying backdrop, my experience of reality have shortened down to minutes, if not seconds — the closest as I have ever been able to live in the singularity of the present moment. So much so, that time now is stretched out: days feel like weeks and weeks feel like years and I had never felt more alive than now. Somehow tales of days flying by as we move through the decades of our ageing don’t apply. I find myself living: every. Single. Moment. My default state is the utter fascination with the life around and the life within. To that, I’d also add that there is a state of semi-permanent joy fuelled by the awe-inspiring wonder — which is very, very fun…
There is also one important thing — a key denominator grounding the fraction of the evasive present moment. It is the ultimate beauty and thrill of letting go: not to the point of not caring, but rather trusting yourself that if you fall — you will fly, that no matter what happens and when it happens — YOU will have your own back.
How exhilarating. How beautiful. How important.