Communication

            I had a thought today. Well, okay, so I have thoughts every day, but this one stood out as one I’d like to share.

            Whenever we are communicating with others, we are functioning under the false assumption that they can understand us. The reason I say it is false is because all words have slightly different meanings to each person.

            For example, the word “yell”, defined as “to say something very loudly especially because you’re angry, surprised, or are trying to get someone’s attention”, inherently has multiple meaning. Yet, to each individual person the word has a different connotation. To some people, a yell is inherently negative, while to others it’s entirely neutral. Some people even use it to describe speaking angrily, even without the volume mentioned in the definition.

            The reason for this is really quite simple: it all depends on the context the word was used in when the person learned it, as well as the exact definition they assigned to the word for themselves. You see, no matter how hard we try, we can’t accurately teach what a word means, because we teach the word using other words. The result is that even someone learning words directly from a dictionary assigns their own understanding of the word to their own definition of the word.

            In the end, we can’t actually accurately communicate with each other. We can get a decent idea of what someone means when they say, “I'm happy”, “This sandwich tastes good”, or “Are people actually able to communicate?” but we can’t know exactly what they mean if we don’t know their personal definition for all the words they used.

            It’s often a minute difference in definition, but because of this, I've heard people having arguments where they were both saying exactly the same thing, only in different ways. Other times, people get upset because their definition of a word has a negative connotation while the speaker’s has a positive one.

            We can only ever do the best with what we have – obviously there’s no way to sync everyone’s definitions. It’s an important thing to keep in mind when communicating, though. Do your words mean the same to you as they do to your listener/reader?

            Did you understand any of that?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Playing with Paint

            Returning to our renovations channel, this week has given us the start of painting (yaaaay!). While the colour scheme was selected over a month ago, it was the first time I’d ever gone to choose paint colours.

            Now, I've lived in the same hose pretty much my whole life and I grew up in a house with all white walls (at some point, one room was given blue cloudy wallpaper, my brother’s room was painted a light blue and some of the white was changed to a cream) and most of the houses I've been exposed to were along similar lines. All or most of the rooms the same colour (usually white or close enough). So, I thought, easy enough – pick a colour for the walls (white), and one for the trim. Not so.

            You see, my wife’s household is predominantly populated with people with ADD, and that means no two rooms are the same colour. White is entirely vetoed.

            It was relatively easy for my wife and I to agree on the colours for the work room and the bedroom, but the living/dining/kitchen posed more of a problem – mainly because we only had cool colours so far and my wife (and her mother) were encouraging a room with warm colours. I’m not a fan of most warm colours.

            Then my wife remembered everyone in the special features of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings talking about how great Bag End was and how they wanted to live there (particularly Peter Jackson). So, we watched The Hobbit to scout out colours and fell in love. We chose a light yellow and a dark brown for the trim – deciding to use the same trim throughout the house (at my suggestion) for some measure of continuity between the rooms.

            Those were the colours we were working with this week. On Friday, my mother-in-law came home from work to find a previously raspberry red room white with primer (when they tell you that light colours make a room bigger, it’s true!) and on Saturday it had turned to yellow. I told her that I was thinking of painting it pink next and then have it a different colour every time she came home from work.

            Today (Sunday), we painted the trim brown and, wow, are we happy with that room. It looks very much like Bag End, as desired. We were a bit worried at first because the brown paint looked a little too, as my wife put it, “baby poo” before it dried. We were also not looking forwards to putting on two coats, as baseboards are a pain to paint without painting the floor. We lucked out on both accounts – not only did the paint darken to what it was supposed to be when it dried, the first coat was all it needed. Not because it covered everything well enough, but because the way it went on had an antique, weathered woody look. It was a happy accident that turned out better than we could have hoped.

            Hopefully the next time you hear about renovations, it will be accompanied by pictures – and we’ll be done and moved in.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Thank You for Supporting Artists

            Oooh, I'm actually writing this blog on Monday for once! Of course, that’s because it’s after midnight and I just recently got home from a weekend of vending at the Oxford Renaissance Festival. That means, sadly (or happily, depending on how you feel about it), another short blog.

            This weekend’s show went spectacularly for Ringcrafts. We made over three times as much as we did at the same show last year and twice as much as we thought possible. We were completely blown away by how successful we were.

            For this reason, I’d like to thank everyone out there who goes to these events and supports artists. After a weekend like this one, we feel so incredibly appreciated that our will to push forward and make a living through our art is redoubled. I’d particularly like to thank our customers who remembered us from last year and saved their money so they could buy from us (it made us feel really special when you told us that), as well as the delightful lady that bought our scale shirt – making armour is where I started and I never get to make as much as I’d like to.

            Above all, I’d like to thank whoever it was who decided to give us the first booth inside the gates. You’re my hero. Please do it again.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Always Something New

            I love those moments in life when you’re reading a book or watching a movie for somewhere between the second and millionth time and you suddenly notice or realize something for the first time. Sometimes it’s just simple little things that you aren't meant to catch at first, like that brief look or comment a secret villain makes that seems harmless unless you actually know the truth about them. Other times, it’s a huge revelation about the secret meaning behind the story.

            An example of the first one was something Colleen pointed out to me while we were watching The Incredibles – for the first time, we noticed that when they entered the secret laboratory of Edna (the superhero seamstress), she actually had large bolts of fabric stored in there. It’s a small detail that usually just slips by, but when you notice it, you realise just how attentive to detail animators are (set dressers, too, for live movies).

            I recently started reading The Hobbit (again), but I'm seeing it with new eyes thanks to all the special features I've seen from the movie. What stood out to me this time was a single line – a comment about the battle of the mines of Moria. I've never noticed it there before, but because it plays a larger role in the movies, I caught it this time. This isn't just a testament to the attention to detail that Peter Jackson has, but also to Tolkien’s world building skills. Nothing says the world of a book is real like a casual reference to historical events.

            The one that got me thinking about all this was while I was watching The Croods (yes, I know I watch a lot of movies, but I make chainmaille for a living and it helps to have some entertainment). It’s a fun animated movie, with some good messages in it and that’s just what I was thinking when the “wow” moment hit me. The biggest underlying meaning in the movie is overcoming fear to live a better life.

Then I took a closer look and my jaw dropped as I saw, twisted into the story, a huge political and social commentary on the effects of fear, including how it is used to control people. A fearful person used their fear to instil fear in others to get them to do what they wanted, justifying it to themselves by saying it was for their protection. The fear closed minds and prevented progress. It wasn't until the fear was released that minds were opened and life became better.

            If you take that story and paint it over various people and/or world events (I'm sure I don’t have to give any examples), certain things suddenly start to make sense (or, at least, as much sense as they can). I don’t know if the movie makers intended for their movie to be applied to a global scale, but I don’t really care because it can be. Be it for a person, country or planet, overcoming fear opens minds and improves life.

            That’s the best part about these revelations – they don’t even have to be intended by the creators. They are there and they bring a new life to entertainment, which is why the best books, movies and video games are worth second, third and fourth times through. Even if it’s in your mind, there’s always something new to find.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Writer, Chainmailler... Roofer?

            You know what I shouldn't do on a Sunday before blogging? Roofing. Now there is a tiring job.

            One thing that always happens when renovating is the discovery of more tasks that need to be done. Roofing is one of the ones that holds up the rest of the work because there’s no point in repairing water damage if more water is going to be getting in.

            Having never roofed before, this was a new experience for me. I've been on roofs before and, luckily, I'm pretty good with heights – as long as I feel I have solid footing or I have something to hold on to. Working on a roof is just a bit more challenging because you need to be doing things with your hands while keeping yourself stable.

            My father-in-law, being the one with experience, did most of the work, of course. I was mostly holding shingles, keeping things stable and scampering up to and down from the roof (down is always harder than up, what’s with that?). I also now have a far better understanding of how shingles work, as well as far more respect for roofers. Seriously, have you seen the way they toss around bundles of shingles? I can barely drag one along the ground.

            Well, there’s more roofing to be done tomorrow (today, for those of you reading this), so I’d better head off. Who knows what heights I’ll have climbed to by next week?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.