Something is very wrong. It's my long awaited and pined for Saturday, and I'm up before 9 o'clock. Now if I were still up that'd be fine but no-one should ever have to see this time of this day from this side. So what's going on? Noisy neighbours? The builders up the road? Nope.

The root of this whole thing is that damn job which has messed up my body clock no end. Anyway, the cat woke me up this morning demanding to be fed. Now she can't speak, or write me a note, but she still manages to let me know what she wants in no uncertain terms.

She's also pretty good at judging body language, which way you're about to go, what kind of mood you're in etc. Now there's nothing particularly amazing about my little cat's skills, in fact this kind of non verbal communication is by far the most common form in the world.

From psychics to conmen or martial artists to sportsmen, trying to reclaim this evolutionary hangover is a life's work for many. Now I'd had these thoughts some time ago and, interesting as I found them to be, it wasn't until a couple of other things fell into place that I could develop them further.

The second piece of the puzzle was my most recent counselling session.(1) Despite the fact that I was talking about some uncomfortably personal stuff at the time, I couldn't help but smile when I had, via the skills of my excellent counsellor, a 'lightbulb moment'.(2)

The occasional nadirs of my depression, fits of sobbing, enraged violent outbursts or even full blown panic attacks are just forms of communication. If we're sad, or angry or scared we will communicate it to the world around us in one form or another. Even if we try to hold it in, the message forces its own way out in the end.

We're all involved in a process of communication, all the time, but of course this process is more than simply expressing your own information. The third and final dimension of this idea came from watching TV the other night.

Good and stoned I was vaguely watching an advert for a loan company when I suddenly saw it in a different light. Next time you see any kind of advert try to imagine you can't read or speak English, (or whatever language it's in.) The written symbols become abstract shapes and the spoken words just noise.

Looking at this particular advert in this way this was the message I received:

these people are miserable people, they're out in the rain and the world is a cold, dark and drab place,

our office is a source of light, smiles and colour, populated by well dressed people made happy simply by being here,

contact us and we'll sell you some of this joymaking sunshine,

Now obviously the spoken and written words in the advert explain the specific intent of the advert, however, this entirely rational information can only supplement, not override, the abstract aural and visual messages.

The first two experiences mentioned above serve nicely to add meat to these bones. The second part suggested that we're all communicating all the time, sending and receiving, and on all levels. This is why we can't counter the impact of the abstract message with the specific, we can't choose which bits to notice.

The reason we're all communicating all the time comes from the first idea, namely that that's what life does and it's what we've always done. I'm tempting at this point to try and explain this by talking about how all living things are in fact parts of one great living thing and all this communication is in fact the bonding system that holds us all together.

Let's not get any further into that right now however, as I'm not quite done with this post's original topic yet. The notion is often espoused that we, as a race, do not communicate enough and that this lack of communication is the root cause of all our problems. I now completely disagree.

Every time you hold a door open for someone, or cut them up in traffic; every time you smile and make small talk with a stranger, or glare at them as you barge past; every time you offer someone a light or walk past a beggar with a pocket full of change, through all these things you scream at the world about who your are and how you feel.(3)

We don't need to communicate more regularly, but rather with more forethought and attention. Communication is as much a part of life as breathing and thinking.(4) We can choose the how, and to some extent the what, but when it comes down to it, communication is not a choice.

footnotes

(1) have to say counselling hasn't been easy but is definitely worth it, anyone trying to cope with mental health problems, especially if they're concerned about going on meds, should at least give it a go; that is of course if you're lucky enough to live in a postcode where it happens to be freely available,

(2) I feel slightly blasphemous saying this but there is some'thing' that I love more than music and even more than lovely, lovely cannabis, (sorry Mary :( ) and that's that lightbulb moment; during that counselling session I realised that clearlight flash, when a beautiful idea appears from nowhere, or melts perfectly out of a mess of confusion, is what I live for,

(3) as quite often happens, a religion has a really good idea but, over time, corrupts it into ritualised nonsense and I certainly have no interest in karma in the traditional sense of each person individual carrying around a personalised spiritual score card,

the slightly different idea, however, that good and bad moods can be spread between people, that treating people well encourages them to treat others well, sounds not just reasonable but obvious to me; of course the downside to this is that it lacks the guarantee of personal reward that is the cornerstone of all organised religion,

(4) in my own personal beliefs, thinking, breathing and communicating are the three fundamental pieces of life: the mind, the flesh an the metal respectively, each equally vital and inter dependent,