Mind your Words

Imagine this..

You are holding a bucket full of water and running down the street. What would happen ?

…

All of us would visualize an elaborate scene such as water spilling out of the buckets, and some of us would have slipped a step and fallen down.

See what these words have done to us.

By use of 12 words, human intelligence has re-created a complete scene, based on information we already have. Through their distinct meanings, see what words have brought in with them. Building a correlation and integrating all fragments into a series of pictures and created a live-visual. That is the power of Words.

This is not my original idea. I borrowed this from an MIT lecture on AI that I came across on the youtube. The context there was to emphasise on human intelligence and the concept of simulating them through Artificial Intelligence.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63gFHB6xb-kVBiQHYe_4hSi  It said, humans have developed language about 50,000 years ago. We have taken the present form some 2,00,000 years ago.

Coming back to our context, *words* are very powerful and we more often tend to forget this fact.

We might get defensive and say that ‘I choose my words’. Right, but even if that is true, do we really have the wherewithal to choose what we read/hear.  Most of the times, we read or hear involuntarily. Before we start using the filters, we are already consumed by such content.

Words are so powerful that they can pull us out of pain. Motivate us to do extraordinary feats. On the downside, falsehood too can be spread very easily.  Human mind is trained to disbelieve even the most obvious things, by repeated questioning. Whether by direct word or through euphemisms, words to humans are far more intelligible and quick to consume. We have come very far to realise that words represent a person’s perspective. We take words to be facts by themselves, most of the time.

Remember this, “Garbage-In-Garbage-Out”. What repeats, does get engraved in our memories.  Good, bad or the ugly, all.  With the advent of technology and media, word now travels at the speed of light – in true physical sense of space and time. Thanks to optical-fiber and higher speeds of data transmission.   Is it fair to fool ourselves that we can choose and allow every word that comes by, to selectively influence us ?  Words that come by directly affects our thinking, perception and action.

It is sad to see that many of us, the so-called educated lot, have mixed-up on language and content. The flamboyance in language many times outshines the validity and intended purpose of content in communication.  Using language that is rich in linguistic fervour but inappropriate or irrelevant also has found favour. Simply put,  this is miscommunication. By not delivering the right purpose, language can cause serious harm to humanity.   We now can relate this to how innocent youth have been instigated to do heinous crimes from time to time. That’s the power of words.

We are not far from identifying a potential criminal or terrorist by his/her choice of words.  We will soon have tools with AI to do this.

It is therefore imperative that we mind our words. Not be eager to play high drama through use of high-decibel words, but be true to the intent behind the communication.  Be warned all kinds of Words, both printed/ written script, audio, visual and videos can cause harm. Exercise more care and restraint, before reading through any communication, by source, authenticity and more importantly, purpose.

Mind your Words !