Having My Way

9

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN

You can reflect what is another’s; You can radiate only what is your own.

—CHINESE PROVERB

Recently I remarked to my long-time and most intimate acquaintance, “You know, it has been dawning on me that nearly everything I have written for the past 25 years is the same old theme song—only the titles are different!” The reply, “I have known that all the time!” It is not merely that I am slow to catch on; it is more a case of trying to follow the counsel of a wise friend of my earlier days, “Say what you mean and mean what you say.”

To mean what you say is properly labeled as integrity: the accurate reflection in word and deed of whatever one believes to be right. Anyone who so wills it can do this. No need to belabor this point.

But saying what one really means, even on a single theme, is a goal without end, that is, if the thought is growing, expanding, becoming more meaningful. Further, there are endless ways of saying what one means and in each new way there is some enlightenment—for self if not for others. For instance, have you not tried over and over again to explain an idea to a person, his only response being a blank stare? And then, finally, there is the right phrasing for this person and his face lights up: “I now see what you mean!” As W. E. Hickson phrased it, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.” My main theme, for lo these many years? The sole way to a better world is the improvement of self as distinguished from the reforming of others. Few, indeed, are those who have responded, “I see what you mean.” But now there comes to my attention the ancient Chinese Proverb which makes precisely the same pronouncement, except in different and doubtless better phrasing than I have ever contrived: one can reflect what is another’s; one can radiate only what is his own. An excuse for my theme under still another title!

To “reflect,” as meant in this Proverb, is only to echo what one reads or hears; it is not of the self and, thus, has no communicative muscle; it is as powerless as one’s own reflection in the mirror. Many, if not most, of the words that are spoken and written today fall in this useless category; they are as meaningless as a prayer by rote, that is, they are without understanding or thought—as unattractive as a broken record!

True, to reflect in the mockingbird sense, saying what others said by rote, is but babble. One must not, however, gloss over that other kind of reflection which is quite the opposite, reflection that accounts for all intellectual, moral, and spiritual acquisition, the sole fountain of radiation. Coleridge puts this idea in focus:

There is one art of which every man should be a master—the art of reflection. If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all?

On this matter of reflection and radiation, we must bear in mind that the individual is at once a receiving and broadcasting station; he can radiate only that which has first been received, that is, made his own. This is to say that his broadcasting range is limited by the extent and depth of his reflections—by how good a thinking man he is.

I am reminded of a time—1910—long before TV and even radio, when I built a wireless receiver and transmitter. While mounted on the same box, the receiving and sending parts were unrelated. This gadget could receive from a distance of 500 miles, but could transmit no more than two miles. As distinguished from a human being, these two parts had nothing to do with each other. We humans, for the most part, resemble that boyhood wireless in a single respect: our reception usually encompasses a greater range than does our broadcasting. At least, I find this to be the case.

To repeat, a person can radiate only that which has first been received, reflected upon, digested, made his own! Thus, no one but a thinking man can radiate.

What does the thinking man think about? Reflect upon? He contemplates radiations—in the form of ideas! From whence come these? They stem from two sources: the Voice Within and the Voices Without, each being a form of radiant energy.

As Emerson said, “We lie in the lap of an immense intelligence.” This, as all radiant energy, is a flowing phenomenon; it flows through all life—constantly!

The Voice Within is that part of this intelligence which one personally succeeds in intercepting: tiny flashes of enlightenment referred to as insight, intuition, discovery, invention, creativity. Whatever is intercepted becomes one’s own. An idea successfully intercepted can, in turn, be radiated; that which has been received may be transmitted, although transmittal is difficult and requires considerable skill.

All intelligence at the human level originated with this Voice Within—yours, mine, or someone else’s.

As to the Voices Without, countless persons have, since the dawn of consciousness, intercepted bits of this “immense intelligence,” making these bits of wisdom their own. Their enlightenments are, more or less, in radiation. The thinking man tries to tune these into his receiving set, making them, as well as the Voice Within, his own.

Finally, is it really true that one can radiate only that which is his own?

My answer is an unequivocal yes! Why then are there so few persons who will accept this axiom as a guiding thought? It is simply this: most of us have intercepted so little of the “immense intelligence”—made it our own—that we have nothing to radiate. When this is the case, it is extremely difficult to acknowledge as valid those phenomena which lie beyond one’s own experiences.

Obviously, no one can radiate mental energy or thought that has not been intercepted, received. Broadcasting or radiating creative thought—phases of the “immense intelligence”—is governed by the tuning-in range of one’s receiving set and the power of his amplifier. If one is radiating nothing, then let him draw the self-evident and unhappy conclusion and set about its correction: the perfection of self—striving to become a better thinking man.

To whom does this corrective process apply? To every living person—without exception!