The typical modern college student, with the possible exception of a few passionate English majors, dread the assigned poetry that their high school teachers appointed. I was no exception; being forced to read fanciful words for no specific purpose didn’t appeal to me. I would wonder, “What will any of this have to do with my major in college?”, and then in my freshman English classes, I would still silently grumble: “I’m not going to need to do any of this when I get my job.” I essentially had forgotten poetry until I began to discover, on my own, the usefulness for these finer parts of our world.

At some point, we decided that all we needed was to see facts and data in order to make decisions and act effectively. I would argue that this was driven by our gross over-emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). As I began to find myself in positions of leadership after I arrived at college, it became apparent that people needed more than just numbers and sentences to operate. By focusing solely on “important” topics in education, we forget to consider the human element. The fact is, humans are irrational and emotional creatures. From the outside looking in, our compulsions and our needs would likely make no sense to an observer of higher sentience; we strive to create and be a part of things that are greater than ourselves, and we often invest in these constructs far beyond typically quantifiable resources: time, money, and effort. We invest a higher, more abstract and more whole part of our selves in the things or people that we believe in.

The use that I see in the beauty of writing is that we give this emotive human experience a way to be communicated and shared amongst each other. No matter how hard I try, there is really no great way that I could tell you exactly how I am feeling at this exact moment using any type of data or factual support. Therein lies the usefulness of true abstract communicative ability, by using arousing and inflammatory language, we transcend the words that we write or speak and we are able to create an emotional response that transcends the words on a page.

Reading and appreciating poetry and artistic prose can give you the ability to project your emotions on to others, whether it be through spoken word or text. Through words like these, we can inspire any of a range of responses in our listeners. Through strong and effective language, imagery and inflection, a football coach can transform his players from a bus load of high school kids into something resembling a pack of wolves, ready to rip at the throats of anyone in a different colored jerseys.

I have a great deal of experience with this tradition we call the pregame speech. In my 12 years of football through high school and into college rugby, I’ve experienced the entire range of these pep talks. I would group them into three types: The great ones, the loud ones, and the ones that simply call you to get the job done (of course there are also the wholly ineffective ones, but they have no place here). The loud ones are the least effective, they are also the most common; the purpose is simply to induce a biological response to borderline abusive stimuli coupled with mob mentality. In all fairness, these can be highly effective-for a short time. After two or three of these Friday night speeches, I was entirely immune to their effects. I began giving myself my “just get your job done speeches” because they made sense to me in the face of all the howling nonsense going on around me. I didn’t have the physical effects that a louder speech would have given, but I still had my wits about me, which was enough, being a player more grounded in technique and fundamentals than raw intensity and violence.

The glorious thing about the one-in-a-thousand coach or captain who can deliver this speech is that the energy that it creates with you moves from the mind into the body. These things, that are nothing more than words, have the ability to change both your psychology and, in turn, your physiology. The words from this man enter your mind through your ears and your eyes, they are processed, and this coach or captain has the ability to create an emotional or even instinctual urge to bring forth intensity and adrenaline. A person with the ability to invoke these types of feelings and primal urges can quite literally turn others into animalistic savages.

For those of us with slightly softer hearts, I pose the question: would you rather have the person you love say simply "I love you" or “I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you (Brontë - Jane Eyre). I feel that the answer is easy, the latter is much more thought provoking and it took effort - the one saying it actually put some thought into sharing their feelings about you rather than simply delivering a boring and predictable phrase. I think that is really saying something of their character as well as their appreciation for the special thing that the two of you have going on.

Ultimately, I believe the purpose of specialized forms of language is to transcend the simple transmission of words, and to reach a point where we are moving feelings and emotions between minds on the backs of the spoken or written words.

Master this, and I believe, you will have become adept in art of communication.

To end this, I'll leave you with one of my favorites. It was reciting by the great Nelson Mandela in prison as a way to remind him of his own self-mastery, a concept that I hold very dear in my own life.

By William Ernest Henley - Invictus:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.