Interpersonal communication

“ It is socially convenient, for purely practical reasons, to regard my fellow as a being whose mind shall be wholly independent, as to its inner being, of my own knowledge about my fellow. This view of the social relation is indeed suggested by well-known experiences, but in its ideally extreme forms, it is warranted by no experience, and is actually contradicted by every case of the communication of mind with mind. ”

“ In general, long and varied acquaintanceship, close familiarity, lives whose circumstances have often corresponded, in short an exceptional fund of common experience is needed, if people, in the absence of special communicative gifts, active and receptive, are to communicate, and even with these gifts the success of the communication in difficult cases depends upon the extent to which past similarities in experience can be made use of. ”

“ The arts that distinguish man from his inferiors are the products of inter-communication and co-operation. The art of conversation and the accompanying interchange of ideas and thought stimulus are to be numbered among the benefits. ”

“ Even those whom wisdom or virtue have placed above regard to such petty recommendations, must nevertheless be gained by similitude of manners. The highest and noblest enjoyment of familiar life, the communication of knowledge, and reciprocation of sentiments, must always pre-suppose a disposition to the same inquiry, and delight in the same discoveries. ”

“ When asked, he is more likely than not to reply that communication is an irrelevant or at best a minor issue, and that what he is making is something which is beautiful in itself, or satisfying to him personally, or something expressive, in a more or less vague sense, of his emotions, or of himself, something personal and individual. ”

“ Of course, if He pleases, He may Himself speak to the soul in the way of direct personal communication, and so arouse the heart and conscience without the aid of any human instrumentality. But in most cases He makes use of means. ”

“ Why do we so willingly speak and talk one with another, when notwithstanding we seldom cease our converse before we have hurt our conscience?
Why we so willingly talk is, for that by discoursing one with another, we seek to receive comfort one of another, and desire to ease our mind. ”

“ We start then from the natural isolation and severance of minds. Their experiences at the best, under the most favourable circumstances, can be but similar. Communication, we shall say, takes place when one mind so acts upon its environment that another mind is influenced, and in that other mind an experience occurs which is like the experience in the first mind, and is caused in part by that experience. Communication is evidently a complicated affair, and capable of degrees at least in two respects. ”

“ And yet, despite these iron limits, communication is not only one of the especial delights, but also one of the chief uses, of human life. As every spiritual activity implies fellowship, so does almost every thought, almost every result of spiritual activity, imply some speech of our fellows. Voices and books,—who would be himself without them? I do not believe myself to have now in my mind one valuable thought which owes nothing to the written or spoken thought of other men, living or dead. ”

“ One shares in what another has thought and felt and in so far, meagerly or amply, has his own attitude modified. Nor is the one who communicates left unaffected. Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing ”

“ But it is five years since we met, I am another man altogether, and if my wife be as much altered, we shall need a new introduction. Correspondence, however active, is a poor substitute for personal communication and tells one but little of the inner life. ”

“ Possessing little in the way of means, less in that of accomplishments, and nothing at all in the line of looks, they had formed a vast circle of acquaintance, chiefly by a hearty, unaffected interest in each individual personality. ”

“ I saw a gracious gentleman who adapts his conversation to the form of the head of the man he talks with! I had fancied that the value of life lay in its inscrutable possibilities; in the fact that I never know, in addressing myself to a new individual, what may befall me. ”

“ And it is precisely in the act of communication, in social contact of some sort, that this material grows, that it gets the impulses that give it further definition, refinement, organization. It is by intercourse with others that we expand our inner experience. In other words, and this is the point of the matter, the personal idea consists at first and in all later development, of a sensuous element or symbol with which is connected a more or less complex body of thought and sentiment; the whole social in genesis, formed by a series of communications. ”

“ Let modesty and kind feeling govern your conversation, as other rules of life. If, on the other hand, your companion uses words or expressions which you cannot understand, do not affect knowledge, or be ashamed of your ignorance, but frankly ask for an explanation. ”

“ In conversation do not lay thy hands upon another, nor speak too much, nor interrupt or disturb another's discourse. When any one discourses with thee, hear him attentively, and hold thyself in an easy attitude ”

“ Men take each other's measure, when they meet for the first time, — and every time they meet. How do they get this rapid knowledge, even before they speak, of each other's power and dispositions? One would say, that the persuasion of their speech is not in what they say, — or, that men do not convince by their argument, — but by their personality, by who they are, and what they said and did heretofore. ”

“ As you say, we have eaten and walked and talked together as freely as children for more than two years. In that time we have become well acquainted—not the poor, shallow acquaintance of formal society, but the near, intimate association of two human beings who honestly express themselves to each other. ”

“ And I, for one, will not hesitate to say that, it having been my lot to mix much, and willingly, in all the various classes of society,—and having endeavored, so far as in my power has been, to cultivate and show a true brotherly and friendly spirit, both to high and low,—I have met nothing to confer more pleasure and more advantage in daily life than fit conversation. ”

“ The presence of this talker is almost ubiquitous. His aim is to create ill-humour, misunderstandings, bickerings, envies, jealousies, suspicions, quarrels, and separations, where exist mutual good-will, concord, love, confidence. His nature and work are in reality beneath the society of human beings. ”

“ Nobody is to mind him, to tease him with inquiries or salutations. If he will, he breaks into the stream of conversation, and sometimes, rousing up from one of these dreamy trances, finds himself, ere he or they know how, in the mood for free and friendly talk. ”

“ My conversation hurls it violently at people's heads. My conversation—when I choose—makes people turn around in their chairs and stare and give me all of their attention. They admire me, though their admiration is mixed decidedly with other feelings. ”

“ We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him; all his confidence is devoted to me: we are precisely suited in character ”

“ The charms, then, of social life, and the sweets of domestic conversation, are pre-eminent. What more agreeable than the converse of an intelligent, amiable, interesting friend; and who more intelligent than a well educated female? What more engaging than gentleness and sensibility itself? ”

“ A free intercourse of ideas, that is, free and unimpeded communication, will not produce uniformity. Self feeling will find enlarged opportunities for expression. An increased degree of communication furnishes the bases for making the individual conscious of the unique part he can and should play in improving the quality of the social whole. ”

“ Should we aim at making our conversation universal in subject, or should we prefer it to be on personal topics, such as gossip or scandal—the character of some mutual friend, an enemy, and so forth? There is not the smallest doubt that if we wish it to be profitable and improving, personal topics should be avoided, and that we should talk not about people but about things. ”

“ I please my imagination more with a circle of godlike men and women variously related to each other, and between whom subsists a lofty intelligence. But I find this law of one to one peremptory for conversation, which is the practice and consummation of friendship. Do not mix waters too much. The best mix as ill as good and bad. You shall have very useful and cheering discourse at several times with two several men, but let all three of you come together, and you shall not have one new and hearty word. ”

“ As a cure for this passion, I would propose a few remarks, founded both on observation and experience. In the first place, then, we seldom find that society affords us more pleasing or instructive intercourse than awaits us at home; and as to kindly feeling towards ourselves, if not excited in our nearest connections, how can we expect it from those who know us less, without having practised upon them some deception? ”

“ There are indolent states of the spirits in which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless ears; and I gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the ladies' conversation. ”

“ Given the opportunity, conversation, charming in its spontaneity, rises out of the mental habit of noting down for future reference pleasant or odd personal experiences, good stories, the quirks in one’s own mind. One must not intrude these in a place where they do not fit, but it is not in the least a social sin to guide the talk toward your own thought provided you do not thereby push out something better. We are all given tongues and with them a certain conversational responsibility. ”

“ I only wish, as people live so much together, that if, when out of the multitude of topics which arise in conversation, an unlucky wight happens to start a serious thought, I could see a cordial recognition of its importance; I wish I could see a disposition to pursue it, instead of a chilling silence which obliges him to draw in as if he had dropped something dangerous to the state, or inimical to the general cheerfulness, or derogatory to his own understanding. ”

“ That it introduces a new set of relations between ourselves and the man, which are indirect, because the things in question are intermediate in them. Not only tangible but intangible things become thus associated with the personality of our fellow-man, and give rise to these indirect relationships. ”

“ As day and night succeeded, as conversation and action supplemented each other on their journeys, so each of them began to unfold from the fleshy disguise, and in a short time they could each have spoken of the others to an inquiring stranger, giving, within bounds, reasonably exact information as to habit and mentality. ”

“ On the other hand, the avoidance of contact, whether consciously or subconsciously presented, is no less the universal characteristic of human relations where similarity, harmony, friendship, or love is absent. ”

“ For long hours we can continue a series of sincere, graceful, rich communications, drawn from the oldest, secretest experience, so that they who sit by, of our own kinsfolk and acquaintance, shall feel a lively surprise at our unusual powers. ”

“ I’ve no one belonging to me out here—no one I can talk intimately with. I’ve knocked around. That sort of life doesn’t lend itself to intimacies. I want to talk—oh! about things one doesn’t talk about generally... ”

“ Active connections with others are such an intimate and vital part of our own concerns that it is impossible to draw sharp lines, such as would enable us to say, "Here my experience ends; there yours begins." ”

“ The strong bent of nature is seen in the proportion which this topic of personal relations usurps in the conversation of society. What do we wish to know of any worthy person so much, as how he has sped in the history of this sentiment? ”

“ What has enabled us to do this but the determination of man to communicate with his fellow-men, and his thirst for the knowledge of what is doing in places where he, as an individual, could not be present. ”

“ Our social intercourse, as commonly managed, is a mere semblance of the reality sought. What is it that we want? Some sympathetic converse with our fellow-creatures: some converse that shall not be mere dead words, but the vehicle of living thoughts and feelings—converse in which the eyes and the face shall speak, and the tones of the voice be full of meaning—converse which shall make us feel no longer alone, but shall draw us closer to another, and double our own emotions by adding another's to them. ”

“ What thus holds for important affairs in life is just as strikingly exemplified in the trivial round of social existence and in our intercourse with friends. Suppose one woman knew what another woman thought of her! ”

“ Turn to improved life, and you find conversation in all its forms the medium of something more than an idle pleasure; indeed, a very active agent in circulating and forming the opinions, tastes, and feelings of a whole people. It makes of itself a considerable affair. Its topics are the most promiscuous—all those which do not belong to any particular province. As for its power and influence, we may fairly say that it is of just the same consequence to a man's immediate society, how he talks, as how he acts. ”

“ While often charming, unattached people are basically self-centered and lack values that guide their conduct with other people.
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS—VALUES.
Sequential problem solving and dealing with interpersonal relations involves weighing various values and determining what is appropriate or inappropriate behavior. It is, therefore, desirable to have a firm grasp of our own values. What does society expect of us? What do we expect of others? What do we expect of ourselves? ”