I chose the title “Water Creatures” because it elicits the flexibility of symbolic thought, which is the subject of today’s message.
“Elicits from where?” you ask.
From within you.
“Water” followed by “Creatures” causes you to imagine living things in a liquid world where slippery creatures wiggle through water more elegantly than birds through the air, occasionally bursting through the barrier that separates their world from our own. We see them briefly above the waterline.
Symbolic language allows your listener to personalize your story and participate in it by supplying details that you did not include.
Symbolic language gives you access to the thoughts and beliefs and hopes and dreams and suspicions that lie deep in the hearts of your listeners.
This is what people are talking about when they speak of “listener engagement.”
John Steinbeck describes this process in his preface to “East of Eden.”
“The reader will take from my book what he brings to it. The dull witted will get dullness and the brilliant may find things in my book I didn’t know were there.”
Symbolic language causes the subconscious to become active.
We did this together last week when we alternated a series of non-rhyming lines from unrelated works of literature and then layered those lines like a lasagna to see what they would say to the subconscious mind.
After each line is read, I will inject my own reaction.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.
(a desire to cross a barrier)
Darkness settles on the city
(the world grows dark)
of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit.
(disobedience and fruit)
Children playing in the garden.
(innocence in a garden)
To be, or not to be, that is the question.
(Life? Or Death? A choice.)
Winter brings a bit of sadness.
(Loss of light and warmth)
Silence covers hidden places.
(Silence and hiding)
When those random lines are considered collectively, I am reminded of an ancient story in the third chapter of Genesis.
(And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?
Adam said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”)
Those random lines triggered the third chapter of Genesis in my mind. Your reaction may have been been entirely different.
We take from the story what we bring to it. This is the nature and the wonder of symbolic language.
Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize for it.
Do you doubt me?
Let’s look at the lyrics of Dylan’s greatest hits. I believe that you will quickly recognize their flavor to be a reduction sauce of symbolic thoughts created by a master chef, a concentrated liquid as dark as the deepest waters.
How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be on your own, with no direction home
A complete unknown, like a rolling stone
Ah you never turned around to see the frowns
On the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discovered that
He really wasn’t where it’s at.
– Bob Dylan, Like A Rolling Stone © Universal Music Publishing Group
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
– Bob Dylan, Blowin’ in the Wind © 1962 by Warner Bros.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you
Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow
– Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man, © 1964, 1965 by Warner Bros.
Take a deep breath, friend, because we are going under again.
I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail
Poisoned in the bushes and blown out on the trail
Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”
Suddenly I turned around and she was standin’ there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”
Now there’s a wall between us, somethin’ there’s been lost
I took too much for granted, got my signals crossed
Just to think that it all began on a long-forgotten morn
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”
Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount
But nothing really matters much, it’s doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”
– Bob Dylan, Shelter from the Storm, © 1974 by Ram’s Horn Music
Chef, can you make a reduction sauce?
Do you know how to create a bubbling brew of symbolic thoughts that will become a crossword puzzle in our minds?
Do not think it is randomness, for it most certainly is not. Randomness is quickly recognized as the handiwork of a fool.
The mystery and magic of symbolic language is that we know for certain that it means something. And it is up to each of us to figure out, for ourselves, what it is.
Robert Frost knew this better than any man.
When people would ask him, “What were you trying to say when you wrote such-and-such?” Frost would always answer, “What did it say to you?”
Regardless of the answer they gave him, Robert Frost would smile and reply, “That is exactly what I was trying to say.”
Learn to use symbolic language.
Your heart already knows how.
Now you must teach your mind.
Readers will take from today’s Monday Morning Memo what they bring to it. The dull witted will find dullness, and the brilliant will find things I didn’t know were there.
Roy H. Williams
“If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. And here I make a rule – a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.” – John Steinbeck
The wizard says this is also true of ads that bond the hearts of customers to a brand. – Indy Beagle
Doug Noll is a well-known consultant to executives and entrepreneurs. He gives them essentially the same advice that the Wizard of Ads has been giving you for the past 32 years: “Win the heart, and the mind will follow.”
Doug says that strong leadership begins with the understanding of a simple truth: People are emotional beings, and their nervous systems shape how they respond at work. “Employers,” he tells roving reporter Rotbart, “should stop thinking of their staff as rational, and recognize instead how strongly their emotions drive their actions and decisions on the job.”
Doug says that leaders who understand this fundamental truth reduce workplace conflict and get more productive results from their people. Would you like to lead a happier, more productive team? Listen to this week’s episode at MondayMorningRadio.com
