Stimulus-Response…
…describes what’s going on in the wordless and the wordy worlds alike.
Had we failed to respond to our most pressing stimuli — such as breathing in and out, staying alive, social media, fire, and the smell of fresh bread — we wouldn’t be here. Had the grass we walked on failed to respond, it wouldn’t be here. Asleep or awake, it seems stimulus-response happens everywhere 100% of the time.
I have no clue why that is. Nevertheless, I think it’s important because words play a big part in it.
Wordless
In the wordless world, words don’t exist for self-evident reasons.
Wordy
In the wordy world, we try to respond not only to every wordless stimulus, but also to words, at the same time.
Meditating on serenity will get you there.
“The serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Serenity prayer
What you respond to, the stimulus, is outside of anybody’s control. We may call the weather anything we want, severe, mild, or boring, you cannot change it.
But how you respond is all up to you. There is no weather or third party involved.
That’s where your freedom is. But that’s not all.
Seeing the difference between stimulus and response also allows you to decide your response ahead of time, and when you do, many decisions are already made.
Words paint a different picture
We begin wordless, and even after that, only the area around our mouths becomes wordy.
It is our fate. Words are a gift we’re meant to keep. We don’t have a choice. There is no escape.
The rest of us remains as wordless as it’s always been.
To connect, to be connected, and to stay connected with both the wordless and the wordy worlds, at the same time, this is as good as it gets.
Words aren’t involved in the word-users touching their face several hundred times a day without noticing it. And our words don’t know where we’re going. The knowing are our hands, faces and feet, just like the hands, faces and feet of the wordless, however, with a difference: We can talk about it.
Nothing else on Earth even comes close.