Alessia and James get into heated arguments.  In video meetings, emails and instant messenger (IM’s).

Alessia showed me their most recent IM’s.  She wrote long ones that just got longer and longer as the debate raged.

James’ responses got briefer and more terse, and eventually turned into a single curt word, until he stopped responding altogether.

Then Alessia heard nothing.

She emailed James.

She texted.

She left voice mails.

Nothing.

When we look at the major breakthroughs in our world for the last 100 years, they’ve all been in technology.

Communication technology – it’s amazing all the ways we can communicate today.  Text, email, social media, instant messaging, phone, video posts, television, shared team collaboration sites, internet, satellite, video conferencing, etc. etc. etc.

Breakthrough after communication technology breakthrough. 

Floods of new devices.  Spectacular quantum leaps instantly adopted by the enormous populations who can afford them. 

The last thing Alessia and James need is more technology.

What limits us today is not a lack of technology.  It’s something else.

It’s where the next breakthrough is needed.

All week long, I help people with difficult conversations.

I help people who are anxious, struggling, fighting, defending, arguing, avoiding, being interrupted, who are tackling stubbornness, conflicts, debates, opponents, frustrations, things taking too long, who are exhausted at the end of the week.

Good people.  Competent people.  They have all the devices.  They’re looking for that next breakthrough.

I help them find, show them how to create, that needed breakthrough in their own ability to communicate. This is the one breakthrough that organically creates every other good thing they want from their relationships, their careers, their lives.

What is the purpose of communication?

Communication is the successful interchange of ideas for the purpose of understanding.

No amount of technology can create that.  Only humanity.

What the world needs is a breakthrough in the humanities.

List the top breakthroughs in the humanities you can recall.  How many are on your list?

Breakthroughs in the humanities have not kept up with breakthroughs in technology.

The people designing our technologies undergo rigorous educations in practical science, accompanied by a pronounced omission of meaningful scholarship in the humanities.

Recently one of my workshop participants joked, “I’m an engineer. We don’t have any emotions.”

You see this in little things.  For example, in video meetings which are opportunities for people from all over the world to come together, the camera lens is in one spot on top of the computer monitor, and the eyes of the person you’re talking to are in an entirely different spot, in the middle of the monitor, quite a distance from the camera lens.

So, if you look into their eyes that you see on your screen, it looks to them like you’re talking to their knee. They can’t see your eyes at all.  You are trapped.  If you look into the lens, you are faced with the cold eye that never blinks. What emotion does that evoke? 

Who designed this? Did they think even think about human connection?  Do they even know about it?  Did any professor cover this with them?  The warmth of looking into someone’s eyes and seeing those eyes smile back at you with warmth?  Was that a chapter in any textbook?

More technology won’t help Alessia and James.  Technology is unable to transform their argument into something beautiful.  They need another kind of breakthrough entirely.  One that only a new breakthrough in the humanities can provide.

I’m talking about breakthroughs in our ability to create understanding.  Breakthroughs in our ability to create agreement.   Breakthroughs in our ability to create harmony.  To unite the various threads of our very different viewpoints, passions and ideas into a beautiful tapestry of humanity’s excellence, the best of each of us.

The real breakthrough during the Renaissance, the period of our world’s history that created one of the most profoundly valuable and deeply appreciated global revolutions even to this day, was their remarkable breakthrough in the humanities.  They called it, “Humanism” and it was a movement that emphasized the importance of creating citizens who were able to engage in, and uplift, the civil life of their community. 

The new wealth of Renaissance art this produced, and its grand expression of the overwhelming beauty of humanity, swept the population out of the miserable Dark Ages and into a golden awakening.  It created a new culture.  600 years later, it’s still a pilgrimage made by as many as 20,000 people per day in the summertime.  They travel miles seeking to glimpse and experience the uplifting aesthetic of human creativity in Florence, Italy that serves no practical purpose other than to transport us all to the realm of higher truths, beauty, and human connection.

They showed us what human beings are truly capable of.

It was a Renaissance in the humanities.  In the creation of culture, thought, philosophy, ethics, individual creativity and the creation of great beauty.  The beauty of the literature, paintings and sculptures.  The beauty of the writers’, sculptors’ and painters’ skill.  The powerful influence of their teachers who brought their great gifts forth.

And the beauty of human connection.  The power of beautiful communication.

Technology is not scary.

Lack of humanity is.

That’s why I do the work I do.

To help people create their breakthroughs.  One conversation at a time.

Relationships are a work of art. 

And you the artist.  You create.  With every conversation, you create.

Whatever technologies you use, if you wish, you can contribute to the breakthrough in the humanities that will create the new Renaissance this world is now so desperately seeking.

You can be the next communication Michelangelo.  Step forth as an intentional artist in your next conversation.  Find the humanity.  Find the beauty in you.  In them.  Connect.  Make it beautiful.  Contribute to a Renaissance.

In any relationship, there are no ordinary ceilings.  They are all simply waiting for you, ready for your transformative touch.

Be the cause!

P.S.  Oh, yes.  Alessia and James.  Doing very well indeed.  There’s a beauty in their communication now that’s quite remarkable.