Communication: Now hear this

The other day I was fortunate enough to have met two new people involved exclusively in the unleashing of other people's creative potential. One was through discussion and the other was through acting.

Ms. Alison J Lester was the first of the two people I met.

She spoke about her book, Locked Out, and spoke about some of the challenges foreigners face while living abroad. What was more interesting to me was that she did stand-up comedy and improvisational theater. She explained that the skills she learned at the Tokyo Comedy Store prepared her for starting her own communications consultation agency. Improv teaches you to accept another's challenge openly and hand it back to them positively. In the process hopefully something is learned or something is communicated.

She put me in touch with the director of the Tokyo Comedy Store, Chris Wells. Apparently there was a new semester of the improv workshop beginning that day, so I made my decision in seven breaths and agreed to go.

I met Chris at the RBR space in Roppongi, behind the huge Roppongi Hills complex. The class was two hours of improv acting. Chris taught us many things that evening, but the thing that stuck in my mind most was his statement about the absurd.

"You can't take the express train to crazy town, you have to take the local if you want the audience to come for the ride."

Perhaps this is not a verbatim quote, but it cuts to the gist.

I agree and this is true for all communication. You may have an idea you would like to share and others may be ready to accept it, but if you don't build references and stabilize the foundation then you run the risk of clarity leak. When you take the local, it is slow because you make many stops along the way. These stops can represent clarity check points. By having many small clarity checks you iteratively build into your system safety values that assist in preventing clarity leaks.

Ms. Lester said having a fluid mind makes it easier to accept any challenge thrown at her from any angle. Clarity and heightened awareness without focusing on specifics too much, having no preferences (Miyamoto), mushin, mind like water (Bruce Lee), the themes resounding across cultures and time. Such a simple theme, but ultimately the most effective one we as humans have discovered so far.


Some questions for your mental:

Simply put communication is improving clarity between two or more parties.

Is communication exclusively external? Is talking to ourselves communication? Perhaps. But to whom are we communicating?
Memories, shadows, or some kind of Jungian collective unconsciousness? Is it god or God? Could it be the sum total of every experience recorded in our life time; both conscious and
unconscious?

Thanks for your time and attention!


Matthew, MB

Beat your Mental