THE ART OF LIVING IN LANGUAGE

We live in language. As a species of life we have no full fledge instincts, but only "instinctoids" (Abraham Maslow). Our instinct is to learn and create mental models in our heads ("maps" Alfred Korzybski) is what makes us "a semantic class of life." Not knowing what anything "is," or means, or what leads to what (causation), we have to learn. We have to discover. We have to formulate, conclude, and construct a model of reality. We have to create meaning and we do so at multiple levels.



So we live in language as a chief inner context in our minds which then governs what we see, what we perceive, what we feel, what we expect, etc. With the words that we accept, absorb, and invent we live inside them so that they govern what we are prepared to see. If we say that something is "terrible," horrible," "awful" so it becomes to us.

"Criticism is horrible; I hate it. I'm just not able to handle it when people don't like me. I always fall apart."



How's that for a toxic thought? A toxic instruction? A pathology-creating hypnotic induction? And that's just one of many, many, many that we all face everyday of our lives. Want more? Here's a sick list of thoughts full of semantic toxicity:

"Over the hill." "I'm having a senior moment." "I think I'm cursed when it comes to money; nothing ever goes right for me." "It's his fault, if he had not made me feel insignificant and worthless, I wouldn't have given up so easily." "I'm alcoholic." "Change is hard and painful."



By language we create our categories of reality and by an unthinking acceptance and use of words, we experience and feel things that undermine our effectiveness and leash our potentials. I often tell the story of Wendell Johnson (People in Quandries, 1946) and his chapter, "The Indians Have No Word for it" (Chapter 17). As a speech pathologist and stutterer himself, Dr. Johnson studied two Native American Indian cultures (Bannock and Shoshone Indians) and could not find anyone who stuttered. And it so happened that their languages had no word for "stuttering. " That idea, that category, that experience is not punctuated by their language, so the experience of "stuttering" didn't exist for them. At first they didn't understand what he was referring to. To even communicate what he was referring to, his associate, John Snidecor, had to demonstrate stuttering. So when a child spoke in a non-fluent way, no one noticed. It didn't exist.

"Speech defects were simply not recognized. The Indian children were not criticized or evaluated on the basis of their speech, no comments were made about it, no issue was made of it. In their semantic environments there appeared to be no speech anxieties or tensions for the Indian children to interiorize, to adopt as their own. This, together with the absence of a word for stuttering in the Indians' language, constitutes the only basis on which I can at this time suggest an explanation for the fact there were no stutterers among these Indians." (p. 443)



Later when Johnson found children from those groups who had been adopted by white families he found those who did stutter. In the new English language, the category of stuttering did exist and so those kids raised in that culture learned to punctuate it as something that as reality and then learned to fear it as something dreadful. They then began to live in the language of stuttering.



For better and worse, we all live in a world of language. When we say a word, we call a world into being. It's a creator power. Genesis describes the beginning occurring when God spoke the world into being, "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light," yet we also share in that same creative power. As we use language, so we create our reality and then operate within it semantically. In our languaging, our meanings are created.



Without language, we would live life moment-by-moment without any awareness of ourselves or life itself. We would lack "... narrative, evaluation, comparison, and contemplation. We would not know who we are, where we are going, or whether or not we have gotten there—the very issues..." that make life human and meaningful for us (Jay Efran, Michael Lukens, Robert Lukens, Language, Structure, and Change, 1990).

"Without language, there is only 'now'—life unfolding moment by moment without self-consciousness or meaning. With the advent of language, an observing 'self' is created and experience is evaluated. Those evaluations continuously and recursively modify what is being experienced, leading to the self-referential quagmire that generates business for psychotherapists. " (p. 33-34)



So given that we live in language to this extent, then what is the art of living in language? How can we live with language and in language so that it supports us and enhances our life?



Obviously the art begins with awareness of language. First we need to become mindful of our words and mindful of what we are doing with our words. What are you doing with your words? And, what are your words doing for you? This is the neuro-linguistic and neuro-semantic facet of language. Language does things to us! Language gets into our eyes so that we see the world in terms of our words and concepts. Language induces us into states. Language gets encoded in our body, in muscle memory. Now you know why Meta-Coaches and Neuro-Semanticists are always asking,

"Do you hear what you're saying?"

"As you hear yourself say that and use those words, what are you aware of?"

"Hearing yourself say that, how will you start to clean up your language and frame things in ways that support you?"



Once you recognize that you live your life in language and always will, the next step is to quality control your language so that you can choose life-enhancing and empowering ways to speak and encode things.

"What cognitive distortions have you found in your language today?"

"How empowering is that term, concept, understanding, or belief?

"How is your language?"

"What are some of your best formulas that unleash your potentials?"

“Berharaplah yang terbaik terjadi pada Anda

maka Anda akan mendapatkan hal yang baik itu terjadi.

Keadaan akan bekerja sesuai yang Anda harapkan

jika Anda mengarahkan fokus pada hal positif.”



“Berharaplah yang terbaik dari orang lain.

Jika mereka tahu harapan Anda, maka mereka akan memberikan

kebaikannya kepada Anda.”



“Berharaplah yang terbaik dari diri Anda,

dan Anda akan memiliki kemampuan untuk terus melakukannya.”

[ Ralph Maxstone ]

Catatan Asian Beach Games

Kita Semua adalah "Juara"

Selasa, 21 Oktober 2008 | 01:21 WIB

Indonesia merebut lima medali emas pada hari kedua penyelenggaraan perdana Asian Beach Games, Minggu (19/10), yang berlangsung di ”Pulau Dewata” Bali.

Kelima medali emas tersebut diraih dari tiga cabang berbeda. Dari cabang silat yang dipertandingkan di Pantai Tanjung Benoa dua medali emas diraih lewat nomor seni tunggal putra, I Gusti Ngurah Arya Yudaparmita, sedangkan nomor ganda putri digaet lewat kelihaian dua pesilat, Sang Ayu Ketut Sidan dan Ni Made Dwiyanti.

Dari cabang perahu naga yang digelar di Waduk Suwung, dua medali emas direbut lewat ketangguhan pedayung putra dan putri di nomor 1.000 meter.

Sementara itu, satu medali emas Asian Beach Games lainnya diraih dari nomor selancar yang digelar di Pantai Kuta. Yang sukses menggaet adalah atlet putra I Made Widiarta. Pada cabang yang sama juga direbut medali perak melalui kebolehan I Made Raditya Rondi.

Membanggakan

Tentu saja peraihan lima medali emas tadi cukup membanggakan kontingen Indonesia. Apalagi inilah untuk pertama kalinya Asian Beach Games digelar dan Indonesia dipercaya menyelenggarakan nomor perdananya.

Munculnya rasa bangga ini bisa dimaklumi, terutama jika melihat ke belakang, di mana sebelumnya Indonesia hanya menargetkan perolehan emas lebih baik daripada perolehan di Asian Games Qatar 2006. Ketika itu Indonesia hanya bisa merebut dua medali emas lewat Taufik Hidayat dari cabang bulu tangkis dan Ryan Lalisang dari cabang boling.

”Pokoknya lebih baik dari perolehan medali kita di Asian Games Qatar,” ungkap Ketua Umum Komite Olahraga Nasional Indonesia (KONI) dan Komite Olimpiade Indonesia (KOI) Rita Subowo pada sebuah kesempatan.

Lalu, apakah dengan perolehan lima medali emas itu berarti target Indonesia sudah dipenuhi sehingga atlet Indonesia bisa berleha-leha hingga berakhirnya pesta olahraga ini?

Tentu saja tidak. Perjuangan untuk menjadi lebih baik masih panjang.

Tidak berani patok

Sebelum berlangsungnya Asian Beach Games di Bali, Komandan Pelatnas Djoko Pramono kepada Kompas mengaku tidak berani mematok target perolehan medali emas.

Lalu, apa komentarnya ketika Indonesia mendapat lima medali emas?

”Saya sama sekali tidak menyangka Indonesia bisa mendapat lima medali emas,” kata Djoko singkat.

Sebagai komandan pelatnas, seharusnya Djoko bisa memperkirakan berapa medali emas yang bisa dipetik oleh anak asuhnya. Tetapi, di sisi lain, sulit bagi kita untuk menyalahkan komandan pelatnas atau pengurus lain yang enggan memprediksi jumlah medali yang bisa dipersembahkan para atlet Indonesia. Selalu ungkapan klise yang diketengahkan, ”Kita tidak tahu kekuatan lawan.”

Dari sejumlah ofisial yang ditemui, hanya segelintir yang berani menyebutkan target atlet mereka. Salah satunya adalah H Oyong Karmayuda dari cabang silat yang menargetkan setidaknya bisa menggaet empat medali emas. Mark Sungkar dari cabang triatlon juga menargetkan salah satu dari dua atletnya bisa masuk sepuluh besar.

Kita memang tidak boleh takabur. Namun, dari pengalaman begitu banyak para pelatih dan ofisial, seharusnya tidak lagi berandai-andai. Kalau memang bisa merebut medali emas kenapa tidak berterus terang saja. Sebab, bagaimanapun, seperti kata Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono dalam sambutannya pada pembukaan Asian Beach Games, Sabtu lalu di Garuda Wisnu Kencana, ”Kita semua adalah juara.” [irving noor]

Awas Rekor Berbisa!

Setelah melewati matchday 3 midweek lalu, tinggal satu tim yang memegang rekor sempurna di fase grup. Barcelona memuncaki Grup C dengan meraih tiga kemenangan. Blaugrana berturut-turut menang atas Sporting Lisbon 3-1 (16/9), Shakhtar Donetsk 2-1 (1/10), dan Basel 5-0 (22/10).

Mampukah El Barca menjaga rekor sempurna mereka sampai matchday 6? Itu akan menjadi sebuah pencapaian yang istimewa. Sangat jarang sebuah tim bisa menang enam kali berturut-turut di fase grup. Sepanjang sejarah Liga Champion sejak 1992/93, hanya empat tim yang bisa melakukannya.

Empat tim tersebut adalah AC Milan (1992/93), Paris SG (1994/95), Spartak Moskva (1995/96), dan Barcelona sendiri (2002/03, fase grup pertama). Namun, mungkin lebih baik apabila El Barca tidak mencapai catatan sempurna.

Rekor itu berbisa. Empat tim yang sebelumnya menang terus di fase grup tidak ada yang bisa menjadi juara. Pencapaian terbaik diraih Milan, yang menjadi runner-up 1992/93.

Paris SG 1994/95 hanya mencapai semifinal, sedangkan langkah Spartak 1995/96 terhenti di perempatfinal. Barcelona 2002/03? Mereka juga hanya sampai babak perempatfinal. (wid)

Music :

http://www.videoku.tv/action/music/134/Koes_Plus___Nusantara_VII/?ref=Belajar777