Attachments in messages
This is a crackpot theory I wrote on Tumblr several years ago, but still believe in, so adding it to this site, with a few edits.
This post may sound cheesy, but I am anyway going to put it down.
I have started noting that emails (and generally any messages across platforms) we write, have “attachments”. Well, not the ones you do by clicking on the “clip” icon. This is something more: The subtle, unsaid “tone” of your message.
Your emotion at the moment of writing could be negative, like anger, frustration, arrogance, etc. or positive, like confidence, warmth, compassion etc.).
That emotion somehow finds its way to your message. It would be easy to conclude that the words you use reflect your emotion, but I have noticed that it is beyond the words used. Maybe a combination of the specific words, the sentence construction, the overall message construction, presence/lack of some elements of the usual writing, and so on. These things cause a tonal change in the message (as a whole) and that affects the recipient’s reaction to it.
Obviously, things not in the message itself, like previous communications you may have had with the recipient, the nature & status of your relationship with them, and stuff like those will influence it too. So, the same message (with the same content) would be interpreted differently based on those. However, there is something more than those with just the message, is what I am trying to convey.
How this “emotion” gets “attached” to the message is where the “crackpot” part of the theory comes in. I am sure science will catch up with this some time in the future, haha.
This subconscious attachment is something I have been noticing this time & again with many people — boss, colleagues, business partners and so on. This affects even the closest of the people — friends and family.
That is why it is important to write certain emails when you are in the ‘right frame of mind’ so that the ‘emotional attachment’ that it carries creates a positive or at least a neutral tone.
Many smart marketing people have been agonizing about it, when it comes to advertisement copy and the like. But it occurs even in everyday interactions, is my (valuable!) opinion here.
You have anyway wasted a few minutes reading this, so waste a few more by thinking about it, without letting your mind wander about sunk costs and stuff. In case it didn’t reveal itself, I have included a lot of love emotion in this. Be well.
