It shows, here and there

Have you ever noticed that we reveal more of our thoughts than we intend to?

Not all of us experience such under-the-influence moments, you know.

I'm not talking about dropping the guard.

Including the occasions when we become too carried away with the subject and blurt out what we tried to bury deep down?

We may become so engrossed in talking about the effects of unhealthy lifestyles on public finance that we forget that a burden case is standing right next to us. Is this the kind of incident that you have in mind?

We may even exclaim, "We have to do something about those people!"

Do you have a nightmare on that theme, once in a while?

I utter the f- or s-word out loud, and everything stops, as if it were a movie and the projector went on strike. It takes a moment to realize that everyone is looking at me with expressions of anger or horror...

Anyway, we don't have to go that far to say that we communicate more than we plan to. As I said in our last meeting, we can't hide our true feelings. It shows through the way we say things. The voice is one obvious factor. The eyes tell an awful lot as well.

It is easy to see excitement, joy, surprise, sadness, boredom, indifference, annoyance, contempt, fear, and so on in them.

What we look at as we talk is another.

The floor/ground, the ceiling/sky, the face of the interlocutor, the object around her/him, her/his body parts or our own, etc.

Our gestures count, too. We can fiddle with the object that we happen to carry. If you have long hair, wearing a ring or mustache, you can play with it. We may cough, we may straighten our clothes when we start or finish talking, and they all say something about our mood, our true feelings behind the words. We usually don't plan those gestures and most of us have little control over what our eyes convey to others. How the talk was initiated and by whom, what was the topic before and after the part in question---these reveal not so much of mood, perhaps, but related thoughts.

And that is why we always reveal more than we intend to?

When we recount the conversations we had with others, we often fail to communicate the full significance of them because we omit the details.

The look in the eyes, gestures, etc., you mean?

Someone may say to me, "You're overly pedantic," but...

You still have hard feelings about that one, eh? I can see it in the movement of your facial muscles.

The problem with people who give me such evaluation is that they don't let me be me.

Are you saying that the negative remark was based on stereotypes?

Not necessarily, considering the fact that it came from my own mother.

Why did she say such a thing?

She meant it as a piece advice for enriching ma vie sentimentale. But what good is it to attract people by pretending to be a person that you are not?

Isn't that a problem that you have with almost anyone? That people do not like you any more if you reveal your true self?

I wouldn't say 'my true' self, because that sounds like I am deceiving others.

Let's say 'your core,' then.

Don't you think it best if we accept that any relationship is community service for each other?

You mean, all of us tolerate each other and nothing more...

Getting back to the topic of factors besides words, we are not so bad at integrating the unspoken elements. That is, we know from them whether the statement is meant as a joke, serious advice or even revenge. The curious thing is that we are hopeless at reproducing them.

That's why actors can keep their jobs, I'd say.

It doesn't have to be reenactment of the scene. We hear the tone, see the gestures and postures. In theory, we should be able to describe them.

We are bad at putting them into words?

What is mind boggling is that we forget the details in most cases. We cannot recall what we noticed and only remember the overall impression that they gave us.

Someone may complain that her/his lover said s/he was too pedantic, but s/he may not get the sympathy that s/he deserves unless s/he can explain how it was said.

I told you, it was my mother! I myself have experienced and also witnessed others go through the same process over and over. We are certain from the non-verbal cues what the true intentions of the interlocutor are, but because of our inability to explain them convincingly, we are told that we are interpreting people in a wrong way.

Isn't it usually the case that if we insist on our take of the event, we are labeled obstinate at best and psychotic at worst?

Or wishful-thinkers, scaremongers... I had been wondering for some time why quite a few people tell us that we should trust our intuitions and gut feelings.

I thought we are not supposed to.

We are taught to avoid emotional and impulsive reactions. These days, I am inclined to give such responses more credit than before.

Are they the same, intuition, gut feelings, hunches, emotions, and impulses?

They are similar in that they are considered irrational and cannot be explained neatly.

You are saying that so-called irrational responses should not be taken lightly, and quite a few people are of the same opinion.

We are very much influenced by what the ideal scientific methods are. That is, if something cannot be proved with evidence and reason, it has very little or no value.

But if we go astray from that principle, we will be allowing witch hunting.

There is that danger, but ignoring circumstantial "evidence" is also dangerous. The huge problem with those fuzzy factors is that they escape communication, and often memory as well. Our interpretation of a specific event is often based on the observation of similar ones over the years. Usually, we cannot remember enough of them to make our case convincing.

Doesn't it depend on how much your interpretations in general are trusted?

It does. In other words, neither credibility of our hunches to ourselves nor that to others can be established in an instant. To complicate matters, nobody has a static set of reactions, so we are never able to deduce with certainty whether interpretations of reactions were reasonable or not.

A bigger problem is that we tend to think that we know ourselves best, but that is not true. We may inquire a person what s/he was thinking, but the answer can be far from what it really was, and that without attempting to lie.

Another danger is that a manipulative person can sell her/his interpretation to a less manipulative one. For example, the former can ingrain in the latter that s/he is useless.

Didn't you imply above that we have the capacity to detect malice in such cases so as not to believe in it?

I guess we differ in that ability. Most of us certainly become more adept at it as we accumulate various experiences in this world. Anyway, we should not underestimate how much people can pick up clues. I can't conceal disgust and contempt when dealing with insincere statements, and that has been a problem.

What about writing, does it come with circumstantial evidence as well?

Writing is a tough one. It is very easy to give an impression that you did not intend to and be totally unaware of it. Writing has a greater variation than the use of voice, I think, and it is much harder to find out the unwritten elements.

Sometimes little correspondence means laziness on one side or both, not necessarily lack of caring feelings.

That can work in the opposite direction as well. As I said before, if we write frequently to each other, that gives an illusion that we care and understand each other well.

Such illusions are backed by solid evidence such as the number of correspondence per month, whereas intuitions and hunches are devoid of proof of that sort...

I find it interesting that incidental details are often more powerful than our summaries of them, such as "He was very angry," "She was clearly shaken," etc.

But we tend not to remember the details that have contributed to those conclusions!

A few more snags to our claim that instincts should not be taken lightly...

I knew it, I knew it. It's your "Snag Time."

One is that deep-rooted prejudice can be misunderstood as legitimate instincts. Examples are ones based on appearance, including race, gender, and so on.

That one...

Another is that one bad incident can form and dominate our instinct.

A severe case of food poisoning would make you physically allergic to what caused it.

That's a good one. The last snag that I can list at this moment is the cultural dependency of incidental proofs. The other night, I was listening to the dialogue between Karen and Denys in the film, "Out of Africa." At that point in the story, they were in love with each other, but did not know whether their feelings were mutual. I felt a bit confused because their conversation did not seem to indicate that one was interested in the other.

If you mean that there were no too obvious, sugary lines, isn't that the only way of declaring love that you approve of?

I have been watching too many of more typical Hollywood movies lately that I didn't even recognize my preferred way of courting.

Mais quelle horreur !

Exactly... It goes to show that cues may not serve their purpose if you are not used to them.

Are you sure that we should trust our instincts after all?

Maturity transcends cultural boundaries, remember?

'Maturity,' our catch-all word are here to save us!