Offenses, curses and criticism: how to deal?

Hello friends!

From time to time it happens that I receive questions and emails related to the same topic. These last few days I have received questions that refer to offenses, curses and criticism. In summary, how to deal with people who are difficult to live with because they always present this type of behavior?

Well, obviously there is no single answer to this question. This is because we can even learn to deal better, so as not to affect ourselves (or at least not to affect ourselves so much), but we also must not be naive and accept passively. In other words, sometimes not living together – if possible – turns out to be the most appropriate strategy.

Words like empty sounds

In philosophy there is the idea that words would be flatus vocis, empty voices, empty sounds. If someone calls you an offensive name they are using a word to offend. As we know Portuguese and, therefore, as the meaning attributed to that sound was learned, we can be offended.

Now, if someone says – Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaenswitwe – and you don’t know German, would you be offended? Probably not, because you wouldn’t know the meaning of that word and understanding that language with its sounds is ultimately meaningless sounds helps us to create distance.

Just as a foreign word will not bring any negative feelings, a word in Portuguese can also have the same effect. Because a derogatory or aggressive word, contrary to what they say, is not like punching, punching, stabbing, shooting.

Because in these cases there is an aggression of contact, whereas in words there is a much more subjective relationship. As we learned in writing, in a communication we have the sender and the receiver. And, although the sender has the power to say this or that, there is a medium (which is the language, in our case, Portuguese) and on the other side there is the receiver, who is receiving the message or to whom it is being addressed. (the addressee in an email or letter, the listener in a speech, etc).

The crux of the matter is that we cannot – as listeners, as receivers – control the behavior of the sender. If I’m listening, there’s no way I want the person to talk the way I want them to talk. If we stop to think about it, we’ll see that it’s almost crazy to want the person to talk as we talk.

And, although we cannot control what is said, we can control how the message is captured and received. For example, if I ask for information when I’m in an unknown city and the person doesn’t answer me or answers me without any education, it’s their problem. I cannot control her verbal behavior.

However, how I will react is under my control. Although we react almost instantly, there is a gap of time – there always is! – to decide if we are going to act rude too, if we are going to be silent or if we are going to leave or give a hug. Anyway, what is under our control is how we react.

When someone says that an offense is like a stab, he is saying a metaphor. As we have seen, speech is just the emission of a sound by a vocal apparatus. However, as it is impossible not to understand a language once you have learned it, sound becomes meaning and meaning is experienced as a bodily sensation. And the body sensation, in turn, is felt as pleasant or unpleasant. In the end, when we react, we are no longer reacting to the sound but to the bodily sensation which is above all a temporary sensation.

Someone says: “You are stupid” (a sound)

This sound is heard. If there was a very loud noise it would not be and the process would be interrupted. But if it is heard, the sound becomes mental information. Dumb. Stupid. This is an offense. And, in a matter of seconds, this information is experienced directly in physical sensations: palpitation or tachycardia or nausea or irritation or discomfort here or there.

Seconds later, the sensation is labeled as an unpleasant sensation. And, very quickly, there’s the instinctive choice of fight or flight. Fighting means fighting, screaming, responding, wanting to attack… and running away means running, getting out of there, feeling sick and fainting, etc…

Sound, sense, sensation… all of this is very transitory. As it arises one moment, the next moment it is no more. However, as is typical, people tend to relive their experiences. And if someone said “you are stupid” and this saying lasted three seconds and it was over, those who heard it can take – whether they want to or not realize it – these three seconds as a recording to be repeated hundreds and hundreds of times. And for what?

What has been said has already been said. And it is a problem and a responsibility of those who said it. We cannot control what others say. But we can understand the process as a whole and understand that we have the power to respond one way or another.

It’s like a nickname. In a classroom, a small group invents a nickname for the chubby one in the room: whale, Free Willy, ball. If the chubby doesn’t care, the nickname doesn’t stick. But it’s enough to be annoyed that the nickname sticks for years… maybe even for life…

Of course, in an ideal world, people would be more loving and wouldn’t make this kind of joke if they knew how it marks. However, each of us also has the power to learn to react and to react better to the words we hear.

That is, it is necessary to learn that the power of communication is not in the sender but in the receiver. It is at reception that meaning will be felt and experienced. If it weren’t like that, we’d be mere robots reacting according to an external command.

But I know that it is a long process to truly understand what has been said here. We can learn from a range of techniques ranging from meditation to psychotherapy or analysis. The advantage is that we are tested more often than we would like, and therefore have ample chance to learn that words are sounds and that we react to bodily sensations. Between sound, between sense, between sensation and between reaction there are spaces of choice.

Conclusion

All of this does not mean being passive and accepting everything. In some cases it is necessary to take legal action for moral damage, slander, defamation. But in everyday life, in relationships with acquaintances, family members or friends, we have many chances to react more lovingly to the suffering of the other. After all, no one would offend, curse or shout if they weren’t suffering.

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