Waking Life

Conversation is what separates human beings from animals. Although animals have their own means of communication, through signals, odors and sounds, none are capable of conversing. The evolution of man has allowed a more sophisticated form of dialog to come about. When we say certain words or phrases, the associations people make are becoming more and more similar. With the passing of time we have come to articulate feelings with words and expression. This is not to say however that everyone interprets theses words the same. Emotions such as love, anger, hate, frustration all have different meanings to us. We associate memories with words and phrases. One persons experience with "love" could leave them hating the word after a lover they lost. Another married couple could embrace the word. A third party might have week long relationships and has never felt the emotion. If we put these three people in a room we would discover that although we all believe we understand what a word is, people do in fact associate their past with specific words.