Communication: Drivel’s Own Company
I was thinking about Slakbarsted’s article on communication, Talking Out Of Your Arse, which he posted on Division 42, the one that inspired my NEWSFLASH: Deafie Discovers Hearing People Are Drivel Worshippers post, and many thoughts about the subject of communication came to mind. Particularly the various assumptions that people make, and the expectations they hold, of which Deafies and hearies are equally culpable.
I’m not going to discuss in detail what communication is, you can read this Wikipedia article, Communication. Instead, I want to focus on the assumptions and expectations, that people make regarding communication. More pertinently, how geography, social and cultural structures, the relationships we have with other people, and our individual efforts, affect our communications.
This very topic reared its head in a conversation that I had with My Mountain Man, this past Sunday evening. I, who have, an excellent eye, for a decent drink and good company found much merriment with Coopers, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s good to be boisterous and raucous, and it’s good to be silent and reflective. Sunday’s sojourn was all of these in a vortex, which culminated in me hitting the pillow at an early 9.30 pm.
Successful communication [or relationships] often depends on how receptive each person is towards the other, rather than just the message itself and the channels used to communicate it.
Personally, my deepest relationships are with My Mountain Man, G.O.D., and the Maltese Falcon. We share common characteristics of being the eldest child, a tendency towards deep thought and reflection, intimacy when bonding and separation when not, and the ability to tune into the other’s wave length through conscious thought or body language. Of course, geography separates us, and of the three, only G.O.D., remains physically distant to me. My relationship with them resonates for reasons of comfort, history, shared interests, a mutual love, and more pertinent, a mutual trust that allows the other to be themselves, without judgement.
Contrary to the general superficiality of online communications, my interactions with G.O.D. are meaningful, for the simple fact that I know her from my time in the UK. Sure, the internet and cyberspace changes how we interact, and the nature of how we interact, which is not physical but virtual, but it does allow us to communicate regularly, and via instant messaging, email, email groups, Facebook, Bebo, Flickr, which allows us a measure of sharing via virtual means support communication in allowing a measure of visual input [in lieu of physical presence]. And because it is all text and images, sound is moot.
On the other hand, my interactions with My Mountain Man and the Maltese Falcon, via the internet and cyberspace are non-existent beyond the obvious email. Traversing geography and distance is the means by which we maintain social and familial [whom I have long since come to regard as family] contact. Of course, them being hearing and me using the terrorphone [telly phone, tell a phone, telephone] less and less as I get older, for keeping in touch between visits. Of course, there is texting via mobile phones, but you know……………..
What I am finding interesting is Slakbarsted’s interactions on Division 42. The post Talking Out Of Your Arse, shows his deafness still impacting on his relationships in the hearing world. But is revelatory in how it illustrates his own assumptions about how hearing people communication [I've had to explain what parking meant once].
I first met Slak, nearly five years ago, at the first get together for the much vaunted, and now extinct, Australian Deaf Chamber Of Commerce [ADCC]. He was on the verge of withdrawing from the Deaf community at the time, because he was having trouble fitting in [finding his niche]. I remember advising him not to be hasty, and to give ADCC a chance. Of course, my ulterior motive was my own agenda for socialising and friendship building. But ADCC died a death, which put paid to that social and professional network.
When I look back, I do wonder whether my intervention merely delayed the inevitable. I wrote about Slak’s decision to get the cochlear implant in On Being Me [But A Mask Is All You'll Ever See], and involvement in the hearing world is the direction his life is taking on more and more. Beyond the occassional visit, my occassional interactions with Slak are confined to blogs, email and texting. A natural outgrowth of his social networking in the hearing world, is the blog he maintains with a group of friends, called Division 42.
I don’t interact with posts and people on Division 42, one because it is primarily a hearing blog [why you will see below], and secondly, because everyone on the blog knows each other, Division 42 is a platform for them to continue their socialisation without being physically present at the same time or in the same space. For me, reading Division 42, is akin to crashing a private party. One of which I am not part I honestly feel like I am an intruder whenever I read that blog. Which is a rather interesting, because another friend of mine made the remark that she would feel violated if certain people [we both know] read her personal blog.
But my summation of Division 42 is that it’s a hearing blog. An observation borne by the feedback to Talking Out Of Your Arse, which by and large ignores Slak’s references to his decision to his getting an implant, and the stories Carrie and David, which he brings to the group as a means of sharing something of himself. Hoping to educate and enlighten his friends, they seize on the buzzwords of motor mouth, drivel, et al in response to his post. Though I do wonder, if Slak is enacting a cyber version of being there, but not quite being part of it all, as he is rarely found in the maelstrom of comments, preferring to moderate and maintain the blog?
I find great irony in a Deafie seeking communication and inclusion amongst hearing people, whose mindset is unmistakably audist. Not so much in their rejection of Slak’s deafness, but in their unquestioning assumption and mindset of the world being a certain way: hearing.
Let’s Read:
My Mountain Man [The Nice Edit]
Merlot
Cabernet Sauvignon
Australian Dating Sites:
Australian Beer
Beer Guide
Australian Wine And Beer
The Australian Good Beer Directory
Foster’s is NOT “Australian for Beer”
Aggregators [Deaf]:
Social Networking Sites:
Linked In
Linked In [Australia]
Internet Time Community
Facebook
Bebo?
Orkut
My Space
You Tube
Groups:
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