Supraverbal

Moving beyond linguistic experience

One of the most tragic opportunity costs of living in a bubble of self-obsessed thought is that we lose touch with so much of the vast, beautiful, sometimes terrifying, but always fascinating landscape of human experience on offer.

When you approach life under a fear-based model, the whole game becomes one of contraction and competition. New information is threatening, the flourishing of others humiliating. You stop growing, shrink away from the unknown and double down on secure, predictable lanes.

When you emerge from the haze of self-obsession and lift your gaze beyond the artificial confines of language as a means of interpreting reality, this whole orientation starts to undergo a 180-degree flip.

We realize that we don't actually require a continuous inner monologue to deal with life. This brings about a realignment to the type of experiencing that young children and other animals naturally inhabit.

Except that we now have the ability to process language in addition to experiencing nonverbally. We're supraverbal, able to leverage verbal expression without letting it commandeer the entire project of living.

Most of us resort to sports, substances, or extreme experiences to break free from the tyranny of compulsive thought. The obvious downside to these methods is that their effect is fleeting, and we quickly snap back to baseline.

That's because we're going from linguistic experience back to nonverbal experience, rather than moving forward into an inclusive supraverbal mode of experience that assimilates the verbal and the nonverbal.

The goal is to awaken to the supraverbal not through peak experiences, but in your daily life. If you can do it while driving a car or making a sandwich, you can do it anytime.

Practicing this, you'll find there's a way of going through life without supposing yourself to be the one you think you are (linguistic), but just being what you actually are (supraverbal).

How does it work in practice? First, notice that thought is occurring. Next, see what else in your experience you can notice that isn't yourself talking to yourself. Then, simply experience what it's like to be aware of both the talking and the non-talking parts.

Obviously, any departure from your current baseline will be short-lived. We're heavily conditioned both evolutionarily and socially to overemphasize thought. This is why it's helpful to lean more on the non-linguistic elements of experience.

Once we've sufficiently separated our sense of being from language, there's less risk of being duped by the thought machine. The security-seeking, anti-growth conditioning that has kept us so small for so long begins to dissipate.

We embrace ourselves as we are, and the world as it is. New information is invigorating, the flourishing of others uplifting. Our greatest aspiration becomes that of helping those around us develop the capacity to welcome life with open arms.