It’s a familiar situation to find that you have started a conversation with absolute conviction, knowing exactly what you want to say only to find that you’ve ended up garbling some rubbish about nothing in particular. Or it certainly feels like you are. Moreover, the other person probably hasn’t taken a whole lot of notice of anything you’ve said anyway. This is a common feature of any dialogue: feeling a little out of depth, even a touch disconnected from the other person. We can only ever attempt to say things – but are we ever really understood?
A little Martin Heidegger for you now (don’t groan just yet, he has a decent point to make). He says that:
And so...
Not to go into too much analytical depth, Heidegger is basically claiming that we can’t ever actually know what someone is trying to say to us. Let alone this, it’s impossible to really know anything about anyone. I mean really know, as in personal emotions and tastes; not superficially know, for instance how someone might feel starting a new job.
As a result, we are always talking about ourselves. Even to someone else, when we’re trying to say something constructive or helpful: it’s all a disguise. The minute we open a communication with someone, we’re reaffirming our own existence. We say ‘I am here, I am saying this; I am convincing myself of the awareness of my own being’, and ultimately, there’s not a lot we can do about this. It is a quirk of the art of communication which we tend to overlook.
So the next time you feel as if you’ve said nothing much when talking – or absolutely jack all – it’s not something to be ashamed or embarrassed about. You are merely embracing the art of speaking without saying...and you’ve just made Heidegger a very proud man.
A little Martin Heidegger for you now (don’t groan just yet, he has a decent point to make). He says that:
‘communication is never anything like a conveying of experiences, for example, opinions and wishes, from the inside of one subject to the inside of another’
And so...
‘the communication of existential possibilities of attunement, that is, the disclosing of existence, can become the true aim of [...] speech.’
Not to go into too much analytical depth, Heidegger is basically claiming that we can’t ever actually know what someone is trying to say to us. Let alone this, it’s impossible to really know anything about anyone. I mean really know, as in personal emotions and tastes; not superficially know, for instance how someone might feel starting a new job.
As a result, we are always talking about ourselves. Even to someone else, when we’re trying to say something constructive or helpful: it’s all a disguise. The minute we open a communication with someone, we’re reaffirming our own existence. We say ‘I am here, I am saying this; I am convincing myself of the awareness of my own being’, and ultimately, there’s not a lot we can do about this. It is a quirk of the art of communication which we tend to overlook.
So the next time you feel as if you’ve said nothing much when talking – or absolutely jack all – it’s not something to be ashamed or embarrassed about. You are merely embracing the art of speaking without saying...and you’ve just made Heidegger a very proud man.
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