Talking Loud but Saying Nothing
The art of saying quietly and powerfully
You will not convince anyone by raising your voice and adding a bunch of emotions to what you are saying. There are exceptions, however. And the fact you need to raise your voice and add emotions only proves something is not working. It’s like you cooked bad food, so you add more salt to see if it improves. You get salty bad food.
I can’t remember how many times I’ve lost it. And this is a describe a great loss of opportunity. Whenever you get mad, you lose. You say things that you’ll later regret, just like a drunk. We are emotional creatures, and it’s easy to let your emotions carry you away.
But the other day, I was watching a Mexican Netflix series called House of Flowers. In one of the episodes, there is a character who always speaks clearly and with a well-punctuated discipline, almost with a comical bent. But the punchline here is that she speaks funny and slowly but says the most remarkable truths. And even though this is a light comedy kind of show, there is a profound truth within this character's behavior.
To say profound truths slowly, perfectly, and in a humorous and nonattached way. It’s the punchline of wisdom. To be able to stand all the pressure of a serious situation and not lose your cool and then deliver your argument in a low voice but with the conviction of a judge handing out a sentence to an indicted individual. The nonemotion of the sender raises the emotion of the receiver. And, like in martial arts, you use your opponent's energy to defeat him.
And, of course, we have to engage this technique wisely. When you’re trying to alert someone that he will get hit by a fast-moving vehicle, we don’t say it gingerly and non-emotionally. Get the fuck out of the way!!! We scream. But our emotions communicate many things. And sometimes emotions will do the job fine. For example, if you are talking to a customer representative, you know they will not do what you need. You cry, and you show despair and pain. It will work wonders every time.
When there is emotion in the voice, we can communicate fear, anger, angst, stress, and just about every type of human emotion. Eliminating your emotions takes a lot of work; you must be certain that you have removed your ego from the equation, and you must be truthful, or it will not work.
Maybe you’re just plain wrong, and you should say you’re, and when you let your ego die right in front of everyone, there’s an immense release of responsibility. And here is the dichotomy.
You become more respected because you admit you’re wrong than when you are right or trying to prove you’re right
I cannot recollect how many times I’ve said something stupid and wish I’d said nothing or at least wished I had thought about it before I said it. There is always a new opportunity to keep your mouth shut.
Next time you’re in an argument with someone or see other people arguing, pay attention to what you are saying, but more importantly, pay attention to the nature of your emotions — your intentions. Pay attention to what you say as if you’re an outside observer. Pay attention to how others are trying to defend themselves as if it matters later, realizing how silly the whole thing usually is, or worse, never realizing anything. Let me know how it went.
Subscribe to Medium for only $5 bucks a month! Get access to all articles and plus. Write and publish on Medium and earn money!
Photo by Mikhail Nilov
