By Charles Leyman Kachitsa
There are some occupations that are for life, to be associated with the holder for until they are no more in this world. I got surprised that someone could be referred to as a former musician. Unless one loses their voice, being a musician is for life. You can therefore never really label someone a former musician especially one who at a point had done that as a profession.
The above also relate to teachers, once a teacher you carry that until you are called back to earth where we all came from. The label therefore of one as ‘former teacher’ does not hold. Unless one loses their sanity, they can teach as a teacher at any stage of their life, in various circumstances. Perhaps others may say the same of a lover; male or female, could we call one a former lover, this is very debatable.
Politicians are another breed that can not be labelled as former politician when they stop visibly doing what may be construed as active politics. This is for the mare reason that the label may be adopted tactfully by one who is just taking a rest as they want time to reflect on such a demanding career. After all they say man by nature is a political animal.
Could be the correct word to be used for such life careers is ‘retired’. For one can easily come out of retirement to be once again a musician, where they had been a retired musician, or to be a teacher once more where they had been labelled as retired teacher and or debatably lover, once more where they had retired as a lover. Moreover, we could have just politicians for life and nothing like retired politician, for all of us are politicians from birth.
The quotes this week are a continuation from the book that define language in communication as being vast and not only exclusively verbal or simply words. It is full of life lessons from our daily living that we are blind to though visibly are there. I am sure the selected quotes below from this book will enlighten you to one or two of these lessons, read and enjoy:
THE SILENT LANGUAGE by Edward T. Hall
“Speech and sex are linked in obvious ways. Let the reader, if he or she doubts this, start talking like a member of the opposite sex for a while and see how long people let him or her get away with it. Sex and territory are also intermingled. For many birds there are breeding grounds, nesting territories, and, for many species, areas defended by males against other males. For humans there are places where the behaviour of the sexes toward each other is prescribed, like the parlour or the bedroom. We can see an intermingling of sex and territory in pool halls or in the old-time saloon from which ‘ladies’ were excluded.”
“The history of mankind’s past is largely an account of our efforts to wrest space from others and to defend space from outsiders. A quick review of the map of Europe over the past half century reflects this fact. A multitude of familiar examples can be found to illustrate the idea of human territoriality. Beggars have beats, as do the policemen who try to get them to leave, and prostitutes work their own side of the street. Salesmen and distributors have their own territories which they will defend like any other living organism. The symbolism of the phrase ‘to move in on someone’ is completely accurate and appropriate. To have a territory is to have one of the essential components of life, to lack one is one of most precarious of all conditions.”
“Today our species has developed extensions for practically everything we used to do with our bodies. The evolution of weapons begins with the teeth and the fist and ends with the atom bomb. Clothes and houses are extensions of our biological temperature-control mechanism. Furniture takes the place of squatting and sitting on the ground. Power tools, glasses, TV, telephones, and books which carry the voice across both time and space are examples of material extensions. Money is a way of extending and storing labor. Our transportation networks now do what we used to do with our feet and backs. In fact, all man-made material things can be treated as extensions of what was once done with the body or some specialized part of the body.”
“Human beings have elaborated their defensive techniques with astounding ingenuity not only in warfare, but also in religion, medicine, and law enforcement. They must defend themselves not only against potentially hostile forces in nature but against those within human society. They also must cope with the destructive forces within their own persons. Religion is concerned with warding off both the dangers in nature and within the individual. Law-enforcement agencies have been developed to deal with offenders against societies. Medicine, too, defends the welfare of the groups as well as the individual against disease.”
“…. This notion that there are significant portions of the personality that exist out of one’s own awareness but which are there for everyone else to see may seem frightening. The point, however, is a crucial one and will grow in importance as people begin to grasp its implications. What Sullivan said, in effect, was that the unconscious is not hidden to anyone except the individual who hides those parts which persons significant in his or her early life have disapproved. While they are dissociated or hidden from himself, they are there for trained observers to see and they can therefore be analyzed.”