Com 520 - Philosophy of Communication - Week 15

Week 15

I entered the course with a phenomenological view towards art, and the notion that creativity is the forge of human understanding.  I viewed expression as only one aspect of the creative act.  Looking back, it should have been easier for me to expand communication in the same way, but it proved to me more difficult. 

 I think of myself as living “in culture.”  It is external and something I navigate every day.  I tend to think of communication as something internal that I use to express my thoughts.  I’m now thinking I live “in language” and that communication is the interpretive process used to form meaning.  I’m seeing language as an outside structure, but I still want to consider my interpretations and expressions as unique and as my own.     

Communication, or interpretation, is the forge of human of understanding, and it lets my life unfold.  Communication is the foundation of all academic fields and culture.  Without communication there are no behavioral sciences, or the humanities, and there are no perspectives.  Communication is the foundational structure of these fields and it defines their perspectives.  Learning how communication shapes these fields is more important than what the fields generate.  Philosophy highlights the on-going dialogue reflective of competing opinions that generate new insights and new ways to speak.  My understandings of art, creativity, communication and literature are literally the culmination of 3,000 years of dialogue, and at its core is the exploration of the human experience.  

I live in a perspective of time 

Time became a significant theme. I can conceptually view myself as the culmination of my past projected against the future.  However, my past is fluid, malleable and always in a constant state of flux.  My future informs my past, and my being is continually reconstituting itself as it reconciles and reconsiders new views. 

Interestingly enough, this suggests we actively enrich our past.  I’m wondering if enriching our past is the same thing as personal growth.  

I’ve been using photography and academic study to broaden my world.  However, I can improve my communication by learning how to open spaces for others.  The more they expand their horizons, the more they self-actualize, and the more we can explore together.  The strength of communication is not in what is said, but to the degree it engages the creative imagination.