Thoughts for the Day: 27 October 2020

 

Winning Body Language

Mark Bowden

If you want to be persuasive and influential, then passion is going to be one of the great keys to getting everyone on board, motivated, and actively seeing to the work that you need them to do to help build your inspirational vision.

Vernacular Eloquence

Peter Elbow

What every literature teacher wants is for students to experience the meaning—and also experience the sensory effects of the words in their connotations and music. This out loud approach is simple and it gets me further than I’ve been able to get with more traditional approaches. (Traditional? What could be more traditional than asking students to read literary texts out loud?)

What Doesn't Kill Us

Scott Carney and Wim Hof

Nature gave us the ability to heal ourselves. Conscious breathing and  environmental  conditioning are two tools that everyone can use to control their immune system, better their moods, and increase their energy. I believe that anyone can tap into these unconscious processes and eventually control their autonomic nervous system.

“...how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes...” Hannah Arendt, “Lying in Politics: Reflections on The Pentagon Papers.”

A Review of The Second Circle by Patsy Rodenburg

While reading Mark Bowden’s Winning Body Language, he mentioned Patsy Rodenburg, whom I heard of somehow before. She’s an acting coach. 

Why read a book by an acting coach? Because we’re all actors, aren’t we? After all, we all act and inter-act, don’t we? By saying this, I’m not suggesting that we’re all somehow false and manipulative, although I suppose all of us are at some time or another. Most significantly, we’re all a part of a cast in a performance, or rather, many performances: with our family, in our workplace, and with our friends. Perhaps no one says it better than Shakespeare: 

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
 And one man in his time plays many parts

Rodenburg explores her acting ideas in the context of daily life in this book. She divides our world into three parts: the inward-looking world of the First Circle, the I-Thou world (my description) of the Second Circle, and the over-powering self of the Third Circle. She urges us to spend most of our lives in the Second Circle. She is, to my mind, teaching the process and value of living in an I-Thou world. Fortunately, her teaching is shorn of the complex language and notions of I-Thou’s great teacher, the German-Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. (I haven’t read I-Thou, although I have a copy and have started it. Even a good translation of some German prose (mine by Walter Kaufman) is too daunting. For a fun and worthwhile introduction and discussion of Buber, go the Buber discussion at The Partially Examined Life.) 

Rodenburg’s ideas and suggestions about how to live in the Second Circle make a lot of sense. She provides exercises and images to help locate yourself in this inter-active arena, pulling you out of yourself (First Circle) or containing yourself (Third Circle). On the other hand, I thought the book went on too long after having established the main idea and exercises. Also, it’s something that one might learn more about by watching a DVD or webcast (which you can find on line). 

Rodenburg, like Bowden (and unlike too many philosophers), doesn’t ever forget that we’re embodied creatures, and anyone who teaches us to more fully and meaningful inhabit and communicate in the corporeal world has done us all a great service.

A Review of Winning Body Language by Mark Bowden

Sometimes the title of a book just grabs you and you say, "why not?". Thus, with Winning Body Language (2010 Kindle), it just hit me at the right moment (or maybe someone referred to it, I don't recall). Anyway, the read proved worthwhile. Bowden breaks down the zones of the body and how each communicates to us. When you think about it (if you do), it makes sense. We are incarnate beings, and a lot of communication, probably most, goes on outside of our spoken words. We received messages not just from voice inflection, but through the whole body. Many of us don't know this in a way that allows us to use it, but you can bet that actors, professional speakers, and politicians (the good ones anyway) use it, at least instinctively. If we communicate with others—i.e., unless you're a hermit—you should consider this book and what it tells us about ourselves and how we send messages. Want to get people excited? Raise your hands above your head. Want to be perceived as forthcoming? Then keep your arms open at waist level. Want to speak from the heart? Then fold your hands in a prayer gesture at the level of you heart. This may seem simple and formulaic, and to some extent, it is, but these basis insights will allow you to become a more effective communicator (much as mirroring does). I think that these observations work, that this perspective involves deep evolutionary and cultural information, and that it's been refined by practice. It's worth trying--at least I am.