Talking peace (day 117)

This is the first post away from home.  After spending the last 10 minutes trying to remember my brother's wireless password, I've given up and I'm writing in Evernote so I can post the entry tomorrow.

It took almost seven hours to go from my doorstep in Kits Point to my brother's doorstep on Bainbridge Island.  That's a cab ride (15 minutes), a wait/customs/wait(1 hour), a train ride (3.5 hours), a wait (1 hour), a ferry ride (30 minutes), and a car ride (20 minutes).  That's long enough to listen to an audio book almost in its entirety ("Speaking Peace") and get through a big chunk of a physical book ("Open GL Shading Language").

"Talking Peace" is an audio recording about non-violent communication (NVC) that was recommended by a couple friends of mine (independently).  NVC is a fascinatingly simple yet effective way to communicate without judgement.   At its core is the belief that human beings like to make other human beings happy, and also like having their own needs met.  It's an optimistic belief but I reason that it is less depressing than the alternatives so why not.   Plus it seems to work.  The idea is to state what we feel, need, and want (in that order).  Then listen and empathize.  And repeat. 

One problem is that most of us have poor vocabularies with which to state what we feel and need.  Another is that we often want to state our wants in terms of negatives ("don't do that") and demands ("if you don't...").  So NVC is hard and requires a lot of mindfulness and awareness, not to mention trial and error.

I wonder how many people come to a point in their lives when they realize that they could use better communication skills.  When they realize that conflicts never seem to quite resolve and relationships stagnate because of it.  Is this the same as coming to the end of my twenties and realizing that now the expectations were going to be much higher going forward?  In my forties, I believe I'm expected to have better communication skills. 

A song for this post.