Cries of the heart may not be all that impressive

There has been a well-deserved continuous joke-fest stimulated by the bizarre and largely incoherent press conferences given respectively by SC governor Mark Sanford and Alaska governor Sarah Palin during the past 2 weeks.

Following their speeches, a few, such as Stanley Fish, a thoughtful columnist for the NYT asserted that the governors were being sincere, "real" and human. On the contrary, they argued, it was the pundits' behavior that was shameful and embarrassing. They did not deserve our mockery, but rather our sympathies, maybe even kindness.
Others countered that despite the realness and sincerity of their speeches, their words were inappropriate. Even though they may have come from the heart, it would appear that they were said without considering their effect on themselves, their loved ones, or those they were charged to lead.

This brings to mind a question: what is talking all about?

To be sure, talking is a broad term and has many forms and purposes. It starts very, very early and predates formal language. In fact, most of our psychic bedrock is laid down before we use words. Profound feelings of love and hate and everything in between are first experienced before we had words for them.

To put it in proper context, the baby has been catapulted from the warm womb (Freud called it the Garden of Eden), into a strange, cold land where he must work for his food and breathe on his own. People around him speak a foreign language. He doesn't realize he has a body, never mind how to work with it. The sounds accompanied by the touch and the face of the mother, her rhythm, her smell, this is what calms, soothes. The baby moves from crying to babbling to simple and then sophisticated language.

It follows then that one function of communication is to reduce tension. Tension is reduced through words which form a connection with others. It has even been suggested that romantic love originates from these early tension-reducing activities. (Lacquerica, T. 2004) One suspects that Sanford and Palin were under considerable tension and looking for relief, but not necessarily for connection. In the case of Sanford it was to unburden and with Palin to regain composure, and strike back against the "attackers."

The cri-de-coeur, the cries of the heart as Fish calls it comes across as rambling, incoherent, like a ship without a rudder. In certain contexts such as a therapists' office, a psychotherapy group, a talk with a member of the clergy, a deathbed confession, such ramblings are understandable and given the setting, even comprehensible, but here, they were depressing and a letdown to say the least.

The challenge is to take pre-verbal feelings and translate them into the post-verbal world. Before talking we might ask: what kind of feeling do I want to give others? How do I want them to feel about me, about themselves, about the relationship we share?

It would follow that this would hold even more so for people who are charged with leading others such as governors Sanford and Palin. It is therefore disappointing and less than forgivable that their talks were so self-involved and not thought out as if the only people they had to please were themselves. Their role is to take feelings and ideas and translate them into words that inspire, that heal, words that take us to a better place. It would appear that they did not consider how their words would affect those that they love and those that they lead.