What is effective communication? What is education? How do you choose to understand more than 8 billion human lives on our planet? In our world consisting of more than 190 countries, how many countries and cultures have you interacted with, and what do you know about them? How do you analyse and eventually decide what is true and what is false? How do you decide what to accept, what to figure out, and what to reject? What is the basis of your values?
It is important to understand the anchors of community and country, while also enabling individuality to flourish without unfairly harming others. Processes and systems are important. Our world and your loved ones need you to understand important steps which you have forgotten about yourself and our shared reality, if you truly intend to communicate effectively.
Accord. Communicate. Connect. Anchor. These words contain multiple meanings, appearing simple on reading but much more difficult to effectively exercise towards each other. Reliable connections are made between people understanding the anchor of education based on intellectual humility and intellectual integrity, to communicate and connect. And this must be done voluntarily, without being forcibly instituted or regulated. One person accords. How do you describe the choices of many people, accord or accords?
The twin arms connected to the crown of the anchor are intellectual humility and intellectual integrity, and the shank of this anchor comprises 3 fundamental elements. Every parent and child should be able to discuss values, to prevent and combat moral corruption or a lack of character, so as to protect against a downfall of society and country.
For humanity to flourish wisely and protect this world for future generations, we need to remember wisdom which a twelve-year-old child can grasp, and also understand eight stages of mental and emotional clarity which sixteen-to-eighteen-year-olds can grasp. Know this, and you will never be lost. Do not blindly believe. Give yourself time to question, explore and verify.
A positive intelligent disagreement leads to all parties making discoveries, eventually pausing to say, “You made me think.” We hear what is being mentioned, we do not misunderstand intentions, we are patient with the process of trying to voice words to match beliefs or convey errors, we come to understand how someone else thinks, and we realise the parts of our thinking which can be improved.
In order to get there, we need to have some basic markers of wisdom, for common measurement which cannot be lost.
Basic wisdom of 3 anchors for intellectual humility and intellectual integrity is shared in Article 1. The keys of intellectual integrity and intellectual humility are not about having a pure clean error-free slate of choices from the time that you are born. Intellectual integrity and intellectual humility are about character growth, learning to take responsibility, and learning the importance of change because it is necessary to improve our world and humanity.
Intellectual integrity and intellectual humility are also about courage to do what is morally right. All this takes time. But at some point, a decision must be made. The greatest leaders understand this.
The greatest leaders will remember two fundamentally-connective truths confirmed every day in our shared reality about many humans in civilizations which rose and fell or remain to this day, and about many people of our world including those who work with you:
My parents worked hard to bring me up and meet responsibilities thrust upon them, to afford the costs of an education and travel. The money they earned came from people who also worked hard in other jobs. The books, toys, clothes, movies, music and other experiences or things I studied and loved and wore out came from strangers in the same country and other countries toiling to make all this. Every one you identify as family or friend or foe or stranger went through this. All of them had to go through experiences of joy, sorrow, love, inexplicable emotions and challenges that forced them to grow.
To be reading this, you are living the results of a well-connected modernised society which is part of a modernised country, this reality being the result of the rise and fall of various civilisations throughout our history.The food you eat, the clothes you choose to buy or reject or remain unaware of, multiple accessories or tech gadgets you can choose from- You have an overwhelming magnitude of choices, even if you cannot afford some of these choices. People have worked or are working in many different industries and fields to create a dizzying multitude of choices. Statistics involving humans and details you will not be aware of include those which never make it into official studies, whereby failures and successes, losses and gains, help shape changes to our world. You are connected to human history and our present reality far more than you know or want to admit. Can you accept this first truth, before you face the second truth?
The second truth is to remember that when it comes to doing what is right, ask yourself this question if you have shared our world for at least 20 years and because you have managed to reach this point and this website: What would you have wanted and needed as a 10-year-old child, in our world where many babies never survive to toddlerhood or beyond due to circumstances such as poverty, starvation and war?
To reconcile the hearts and minds of children and parents, and between generations, to realise and acknowledge all this is necessary. The whole world helped to educate you and I. This website is my gift of gratitude and necessary kindness, to the world.
After Article 1, eight stages of mental and emotional clarity from Article 2 are quoted below:
1) Ask about what you need to know, and do your research
2) Figure out what you want to disprove and/or verify
3) Bridge the gap of initial assumptions combined with gut emotional reactions, to acknowledge emotional reactions for what they are. It is never wise to make important permanent life-changing decisions or complex decisions when fueled by emotional reactions, unless you are trapped in an emergency situation which requires immediate decisions to survive or escape.
4) Pause. A short or lengthier pause saves people from saying or doing something which they need or want to retract later.
5) Become accustomed to aiming for objectivity and normality of being able to identify ignorance, errors and preliminary conclusions for further refinement where applicable
6) Remind in yourself a mental visual of a moral anchor whereby in more than 99% of situations, it is a violation of intellectual integrity and also dishonorable of you to take advantage of emotional vulnerability in others, to make them believe in lies and hence manipulate them into making their decisions based on lies.
7) It is possible for someone to be very meticulously diligent about scrutinizing an issue they are passionate about, and that same someone can be intentionally or unintentionally biased into not doing so for another issue which they are passionate or indifferent about. This is especially true and important to remember, when you read from different media sources or journalists and wonder why a source or journalist can be rigorously detailed about one issue, and biased into unreliability on another issue. Always evaluate reporting by an individual or a media source about an issue.
8) Always verify for yourself, when it pertains to complex issues or a multitude of people involved. This is especially true, if you read any news sources during World War II or after World War II. Even today, you are unaware of how current news sources or journalists can be severely compromised and hence serve as misinformation or propaganda channels for certain issues because they will not disclose all this to you, which is the price they have to pay if they are allowed to report from certain places, territories, or countries. Enlighten yourself about necessary history and details of such relevant history, such as the role of Associated Press in World War II becoming a propaganda arm for Nazi Germany and the consequences misleading their readers while also harming innocent people.
We live in different countries, with different life experiences, shaped by different cultures. We speak different languages, received education in very different institutions or never had education beyond a certain age. We have different interests, may be generations apart, belong to different races, and the list of differences can be endless.
As humans, our reference points from which we begin to evaluate almost anything can be almost infinitely arbitrary. Biases, assumptions, preferences are almost infinite in variety. It is impossible to communicate in a connective manner whereby all sides overcome personal opinions to fairly evaluate facts and context, if we have no common reference markers.
Effective communication requires creating connective conversations to facilitate understanding of strangers and loved ones, online or offline. If you want to comprehensively communicate and evaluate the articles on this website, you must be willing to identify certain common markers within and outside yourself, as I have.
You and I can speak as strangers online or offline, but what you convey may not connect to me, especially when a topic is viewed by at least one of us as a contentious or controversial issue. Our words may be fluent, our arguments well-crafted, we can hold stances partially agreeing or wholly opposing each other, and yet we can interpret the same details differently or talk past each other even if we use the same language. Hate, destruction, or lies can be professionally presented, because love or truths or facts is not determined by fluency or eloquence or intelligence.
What fundamentally divides us is what you cannot see. That divide must be addressed, so we can start to bridge ignorance and address errors within ourselves.
It is necessary to understand the words “information”, “educate”, “propaganda”, “facts” and “news” when you read something. News is a presentation of information. You need to carefully ascertain whether the information you are digesting can be classified as facts with accurate context and nuancing, errors, half-truths, or propaganda which is untrue. If you want to educate someone, disinformation or misinformation is akin to providing unreliable information and thus misleading them, regardless of how well-intentioned you are.
If we aim to fairly engage in conversations on topics, or fairly exercise analytical abilities, the best connections are established with basic wisdom. Basic wisdom needs 3 reference points of measurable unity which will hold true and stand the test of time, for as long as human civilizations exist. This wisdom can be grasped by a 12-year-old child, who can understand the connective importance of intellectual integrity and intellectual humility despite not having the words to wholly describe these 2 key traits.
How do we embrace our differences and how do we identify irrevocable similarities in differences, if we must demonstrate mental and emotional understanding of these 2 traits, before we can have a connective conversation on any topics?
First decide for yourself if you need to understand the twin virtues of intellectual humility and intellectual integrity, which comprises 3 fundamental elements within this anchor.
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The anchors of these 3 reference points enable us to remember how to evaluate information, communicate with those we love and those we have yet to meet, with a minimum of necessary kindness. And we learn to re-evaluate what we do not know.
Once you have reconciled the courageously frank traits of the child you were with the adult you have become, you might remember how you want to be evaluated by others and how you evaluate yourself: Accurate and firm yet compassionate, relevant nuances aligned with necessary context.
Do you disown your parents, if they hold different views from you on some subjects? Do you disown your children, if they hold different views from you on some subjects? Do you think refusing to communicate is helpful? How do you approach loved ones to communicate, when any of you disagree?
We can reconcile our disagreements and come to terms with differences, but we must communicate effectively. How we do so requires practicing the lessons garnered from the 3 reference points, to exercise intellectual humility and intellectual integrity.
Have you read the 3 reference points, for intellectual humility and intellectual integrity? What do you remember, upon reading what has been pointed out? Will you look at your emotions and thoughts toward these 3 reference points, reflect, and then extend the same necessary kindness towards others and yourself, once you remember?
Once we understand all this, we truly understand listening and hearing, which is imperative to going beyond your monologue. If you’re blinded by yourself, how can you process what you see and hear? Will you choose 3 reference markers, and embrace them for what they are?
If your answer mentally and emotionally is “Yes”, thank you for choosing to help yourself. Thank you for agreeing to try to learn to communicate effectively. We can explore and learn together in many ways about our differences and similarities, as we progress. I look forward to learning from you and what you can teach me. I hope you can also learn from me.
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