What IF we couldn't use words???

March 18, 2013 by theresultsmayvary | 1 Comment

My wife and I were chuckling about how yesterday I mentioned she felt I’d be a better husband if I were mute.  I was suddenly struck by the question of what would happen if we all were mute.  What if others could only interpret our intent through our actions?

I’ve been reading a business book called “The No Asshole Rule” and while I don’t particularly recommend it, I connected some of the ideas in the book with the concept of being without words.  It would be much harder to hide that you were a jerk or that you didn’t care when you couldn’t use words to lie.  I think that kids would learn better when we couldn’t rely on “do what I say, not what I do.”  There’d be no disconnect, no cognitive dissonance, no confusion.

Being in government, I go to a lot of meetings.  In fact, I host meetings, attend meetings, plan meetings for other people and plan to avoid meetings if I can.  That’s a whole lot of words.  I know I’ve been in meetings where I’d like to have a mute button since the government doesn’t supply meeting rooms like in a James Bond movie that drop idiots into shark tanks.  Well, I don’t get to use those rooms anyhow.   I have a 3 volume tome that helps me interpret words based on their legal context.  We just had 3 different court cases that each interpreted the same word differently.

What a world it would be if we made actions our measure and not the words around them.  Huh.