naorma
Dagobah Resident
Yesterday evening I had a discussion with a guy who lives in my area and wants to do some training in communication. As I have also done this we were talking a little bit and he asked me: “What did you take with you from this training?” Now this is a question that always makes me feel a little strange. When I came to think about it this morning – something that I always do, smoking outside and rethinking about some events last days – I suddenly realized what it was that always bothers me. This phrase has been implemented in modern conversation and I don’t like it.
The reason I found: When you say what did you take with you it always implies the necessity of taking things, forcing in a way the greed in you, and leading you in the direction of consuming things, which is a very inactive thing, btw. I thought what would be the better question and came to the result:: “What did you learn?” This means something different, meaning that you have made efforts to enlarge your knowledge. But this term is not used very often nowadays.
Years ago I read the book from Victor Klemperer „Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten.“ Tagebücher 1933–1945. “I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, 1933–41”. Victor Klemperer - Wikipedia. In these books he describes very precisely the changing in language patterns during the rising of the Third Reich. It is a book with more than 1200 pages and I was fascinated and spent one week on this book, starting to read in the morning before I went to work and continuing immediately when I came back, doing nothing else.
At that time a lot of people where depressed when they finished reading this book. I was not. I thought, well now I know what is going on and I can pay attention! But of course this is hard, because nearly all of the people are using the new implemented terms of language and don’t realize what it means to them. In case of the guy I was talking to I was “successful” because he agreed that this phrase “What did you take with you” implies greed and he dislikes being greedy ….
Just some thoughts . . .
The reason I found: When you say what did you take with you it always implies the necessity of taking things, forcing in a way the greed in you, and leading you in the direction of consuming things, which is a very inactive thing, btw. I thought what would be the better question and came to the result:: “What did you learn?” This means something different, meaning that you have made efforts to enlarge your knowledge. But this term is not used very often nowadays.
Years ago I read the book from Victor Klemperer „Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten.“ Tagebücher 1933–1945. “I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, 1933–41”. Victor Klemperer - Wikipedia. In these books he describes very precisely the changing in language patterns during the rising of the Third Reich. It is a book with more than 1200 pages and I was fascinated and spent one week on this book, starting to read in the morning before I went to work and continuing immediately when I came back, doing nothing else.
At that time a lot of people where depressed when they finished reading this book. I was not. I thought, well now I know what is going on and I can pay attention! But of course this is hard, because nearly all of the people are using the new implemented terms of language and don’t realize what it means to them. In case of the guy I was talking to I was “successful” because he agreed that this phrase “What did you take with you” implies greed and he dislikes being greedy ….
Just some thoughts . . .