This is Revvell P. Revati of Bodacious Living.com for, the WIN online!

Our world is made up of symbols. From the time we are born, people have been sharing their symbols with us. Without our consciousness, since we come into the world as blank slates, we’ve agreed upon these symbols as ways to communicate.

    For instance, in the English speaking world, we’ve created symbols which we call letters, which form words. From there we put together words to create sentences, paragraphs, stories, etc. This is how we’ve learned to communicate with other English speakers.

    Other countries and cultures have created their own unique way of communicating. Every place is different. For us, when we see certain pictures that others call language, we see and or hear it as gibberish. I’m pretty sure, many who hear us speak, who don’t know our symbols, hear the same thing only maybe they call it something different than gibberish.

    Living with someone who’s first language is not English is quite interesting. When I use a word ~ or symbol ~ he’s not familiar with, I’m often surprised when he asks what it means because, to me, the word symbolizes the picture I’m trying to portray.

    Many deaf and hard-of-hearing people have their own language which they spell out with their hands, fingers and gestures. Somewhere, at some time, people have agreed that these symbols, these words, these gestures, mean what we say they do.

    We have huge books called dictionaries which we turn to so we can agree on what these words mean in our language and, ironically, even these don’t always agree AND very often, there’s more than one meaning for many of the words.

    When we drive in the U.S., we’ve basically agreed to drive on the right side of the street. In other countries, people have agreed to drive on the left hand side of the street.  In every country I know of, universally red means stop; yellow means caution; green means go.

    For the most part we, in this country, agree when we see a stop sign, that we’re supposed to stop and, if we don’t, someone with a badge and gun may stop us, write a citation which we tend to agree to sign for and then pay a fine or fight it in court.

    There are many instances I can name where we, consciously and unconsciously have agreed to conform to certain regulations; speaking the same language as the rest of our family and/or country (of course, we can add as many as we like yet, for the most part... we do what the family does because these were the symbols we were taught in order to communicate); practice the same religion (until we’re old enough to do differently if we choose to do so); we eat basically the same food because that’s what our culture, society, religion, etc. says this is what we eat ~ until we’re old enough or have the money enough to do otherwise, OR we move to another country and even then, we bring these beliefs, habits, these programs, these ways of being, to that country.

    What I’m getting at here is, up to a point, most of us have been programmed to agree to certain things and consciously or unconsciously, we’ve agreed to it for various reasons... for communications; because our family does it; because the law requires it or chaos happens, etc., correct?

    Let’s look at some other symbols we’ve agreed on.

    Say you’re driving on the freeway or highway and someone cuts you off. Automatically you may honk your horn. Next you see is this person “flipping you the bird” as they say. How would you feel in that case? Angry? Frustrated? Anything at all?

    First, let’s examine how you’d feel just being cut off ~ possibly angry which might make you honk the horn; or, frightened because you may have hit him thereby causing a crash and the consequences therein are two of the possibilities.  Seems reasonable correct? Question is, how long you going to be angry or frightened and, what will be your response to these emotions?

    As I was writing that last statement, I realized how often we are also programmed by things we see on tv or in a movie. What happens is we “think” we are thinking. Let me see if I can make this clear..

    For instance, when we see someone get cut off while driving in a movie or tv show, we see how they react. Very often they become angry and they’ll “flip the bird first” ~ (wherever did that phrase come from anyway?) The person who did the cutting off may see this in their rear view mirror and possibly stop quickly, creating a rear-end crash; OR, if the cuttee (the person being cut off) honks his horn, the cutter (person doing the cutting), may do the flipping whereby the cuttee may become even angrier and therefore follow too closely or, pull up beside the cutter at the next traffic signal and maybe words are exchanged, a car race when the light changes and, believe it or not, taking it to the extreme, a shooting ~ which we now agree is called “road rage” ~ leaving someone potentially badly hurt, or even dead and another potentially in prison.

    Many see these things on t.v. and, agree with themselves that any of the above are the “right” ways to handle certain situations! 

    Of course, the latter example is to the extreme yet, consider this. What if we’re from another country and someone giving us the finger, meant nothing to us? What if we took it as a symbol of apology?

    Yes, I can hear some of you say ~ But it’s not!!! And I say, who says? The raising of the middle finger is only a symbol of disrespect because we choose to make it so. We’ve agreed that that’s what it means. What if we choose to agree with ourselves that it doesn’t mean that?

    Do you know that certain words or gestures in our country which mean little to us are insults in other countries? Why? Because they are programmed to think that way and they choose to agree with others in their country, culture or religion that this is the way it is.

    What if we changed our programming? What if, gestures and words we were taught to be insulting, weren’t because we chose to not agree to them being so?

    I’m going to step out on a limb here... Before the reign of the Nazi, the swastika originally meant lucky or auspicious object, in particular a mark made on persons and things to denote good luck. It comes from the Sanskrit word svastika. It’s a historical sacred symbol in East Indian traditions yet, because Hitler used it as a symbol for the Nazi party, many agree that the symbol itself should be covered so as not to offend those who continue to choose to view it as they do. To those who don’t know about, or choose to not perceive it as many do, it’s just another symbol.

    According to one internet resource “Until the Nazis used this symbol, the swastika was used by many cultures throughout the past 3,000 years to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck.” Unsurprisingly, many still do because they don’t have the emotions or attachment to the emotions that this symbol portrays to them.

    Going back to my original example, say you do something unwittingly that someone chooses to become angry for and flips you off and you took it as, say, a gesture of friendliness. What if you returned with the American Sign Language sign for “sorry” with a look that portrays your feelings?

    Can you see how not reacting to certain words and symbols may relieve tension and fighting?

    Gang members have so many issues and problems because they’ve agreed on what certain symbols and signs mean. To us, they mean nothing. To them, they may mean a sign of disrespect which means they need to say and do something ~ in their world.

    What if we dropped our idea of what we’ve previously agreed certain symbols ~ signs or gestures mean? Would that relieve some tension? What if we stopped reacting?

    Of course, this would take consciousness on our part. First, in finding out what symbols ~ gestures and words, bother us, then deciding consciously to drop our reactions to them OR, change their meaning for and to us! Let’s stick with the middle finger for instance. What if we perceive it as a gesture of love? It doesn’t matter what it means to the person raising it. What matters is what it means to us; how WE perceive it and whether we react or respond to it.

    Response is conscious; reaction is unconscious. There are times when reaction is good such as stepping on the break before rear ending another vehicle. You don’t want to have to think about that. Yet, there are times to respond consciously to make our lives more peace-filled.

    Think about it would you? Love to read your comments here.

Thank you for reading. This is Revvell P. Revati of Bodacious Living for, the WIN online!

Bye for now!

~ Revvell ~