Meditation for April 19th
Communication Breakdown
When I was a young man, all I had was a landline and voicemail. I would come home and, with excitement, check my messages. Some people had to wait all day for me to get home, check my messages, and call back. There was this anticipation of waiting for someone to get home and check their voicemail before calling us back.
Now I have missed calls/no voicemail on my phone all the time from people who feel I need to be on the same level as them.
“Why didn’t you call me back?”
“Because you didn’t leave a voicemail, so it was obvious that it wasn’t important.”
“—“
That’s right, I will not call back if there’s no voicemail. Since I received no message indicating the importance of the phone call, you are not entitled to a callback.
Just to be somewhat sensitive to young people’s communication habits, I always leave a voicemail and text, “check your voicemail.”
If people can get away with it, they will text their boss at work to say they are calling out or will be late—anything not to have a direct conversation.
I have friends who say they only take text messages, but still don’t text back – ever.
I see miscommunication all the time from people trying to make their points in writing. Text messages are a hybrid of the worst parts of the written and spoken word, with emojis. Text can be misinterpreted all the time. When something is important, talk face-to-face like adults. Text messaging is for teenage girls.
The kids say that voicemail isn’t practical or that text is instantaneous, but it boils down to a lack of respect and fear of confrontation. A text can be read, studied, and researched before responding, but a voice-to-voice conversation is instant and gives the person no shield against the trappings of the written word.
Prayer
Iris,
I am now seeing all the colors of your rainbow and how each color represents a different method of communication.
Red – person to person. The purist of communication. You can be present to defend your point and hear an argument.
Pink – the handwritten letter. This can have a lot of heart and emotion put into a short piece of communication.
Purple – the email. Cold and professional, but can hold a lot of words and may use multimedia to make a point.
Orange – the DM. This is any form of direct messaging or instant messaging. This can be read at leisure or be an instant conversation. These turn into fights all the time because most IMing happens between 2:30 am and 7 am.
Green – posting on someone’s Facebook wall. This is like an electronic postcard. You can post a GIF of cute puppies declaring your love for someone or an article proving you’re right.
Periwinkle – vagebooking. You post an angry rant on Facebook without naming names, but everyone knows who you are talking about. Except when we don’t, and that is really annoying. “Who is he talking about?!?”
Blue – Twitter. You can be as honest as you wanna be because no one actually reads Twitter anymore.
Violet – Passive-aggressive blogs like this one bitching about kids and how they won’t fucking leave a voicemail!
Amen
Craft
Here is the etiquette of modern communications.
Phone calls: when you call someone, or when you have the possibility of talking to someone. This is the communication method for all things important. If someone dies, leave a voicemail that says, “Please give me a call back, it is important.” Don’t leave a message that someone died on their voicemail. If you want the person to call you back, also leave a message saying, “Please give me a call back.” If it is very important, also text that you need a callback.
Text – texting is for messages you want the person to see right away. I can check a text message quickly, but a voicemail may take some time to get to. You need to know that returning text messages can’t always happen quickly, so learn to be patient, child.
Email – this is for long-form reading communications, multimedia, and attachment communications. This is also like a voicemail, but when the written word is more impactful. You might want to check in with the person to see if they even check their emails.
Facebook & other social media/instant messaging applications – when you don’t have the person’s phone number, you want to reach everyone at once, or at least a bunch of people, or it isn’t important at all, like Vice & BuzzFeed articles.
Face to face (not the band) – this is when you are angry, you want to break up with them, you have bad news for them, you want to let them know you love them and are grateful for them, if you want to make sure what you are saying doesn’t get misunderstood or used against you or anything else that would not be appropriate any other way.
Mail – handwrites more letters. Putting pen to paper is the most powerful, therapeutic way to communicate. There is nothing more intimate than reading a handwritten letter from someone you care about, and there is something special about writing a letter to someone we cherish.
Goal
If you need to communicate with someone, you have to make sure the person you are communicating with understands your method of communication, or meet them halfway. Leave a fucking voicemail when you call someone.