Written by Bob Pearce.

Whenever I say something to you I will be working to get you to see things my way.

We all do it to each other.

I have an easy trick I can use to help convince you to see things my way.

I can drop a few everyday ‘closing’ words, like ‘is’ and ‘the’, into a phrase, such as ‘This is the best’ and ‘That is the question’.

If you think they will be there for accuracy, think again. I’m using these ordinary words to let me wear a charming and persuasive mask of confidence and certainty that helps me to talk all tall, and be beguilingly believable.

‘Are you sure?’, you’ll ask.

‘I’m certain’, I’ll bluff.

My ‘closing’ words will reject uncertainty.

I can share a few particulars about how these ‘closing’ words in my messages work on you. ‘The’ tells you there’s only one, not some. ‘Is’ tells you I’m talking about something in itself, not how it looks to myself. So a statement such as ‘Here is the answer’ and ‘Now is the time’ tells you that there’s only one and I have found it.

When I use day-to-day ‘closing’ words like ‘good’ and ‘right’ in sentences, such as ‘That is a good idea’ and ‘This is the right choice’, they can have a huge influence on shaping how you see things. And if I take care to shape how you see, then how you will think, talk and behave will take care of shaping themselves.

My familiar ‘closing’ words can put a spell on you.

When I use ‘know’ and ‘true’ to tell you ‘We all know the problem’ and ‘That is a true story’, my simple ‘closing’ words make it sound like I’m no longer standing some place and talking about how things look when you stand where I stand. My ‘closing’ words let me pretend I’m now defining ‘the’ world and no longer describing my place in it. Using basic ‘closing’ words, I can feign no point of view being involved in my making this comment.

When we look at any photo we don’t just look at what we see inside that photo. Someone was there taking that photo. Any photo of anything will be a huge jumble of judgements made by that photo taker. Some made by choice, some made by chance. Someone had to pick some place to take that photo. Someone had to make choices about which angle and which moment. What to include and exclude. What stands out and what stands back. Many judgements, both deliberate and accidental, will all be part of that photo. You could say when we look at a photo it shows us an interaction. So when I use ‘closing’ words it will be like me showing you a photo, and claiming it was taken by no one, standing nowhere.

If you think this sounds sneaky sneaky, wait. We’re just getting warmed up here.

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