In face-to-face (F2F) interactions, the breakdown of meaning is often summarized by the 7‑38‑55 rule, which suggests that:

7% of meaning comes from the actual words spoken

38% comes from tone of voice (pitch, intonation, stress)

55% comes from body language (facial expressions, posture, gestures, eye contact)

Strong passions are the precious raw material of sanctity.

I have been thinking lately about taxes and war and citizens and what the government should do for its people. In early March 1953, soon after Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower took office, Soviet leader Josef Stalin died, giving the president a chance to reset the rising militarization of the United States. In mid-April, in a speech to newspaper editors that he insisted on delivering although he was suffering acutely from inflammatory bowel disease, Eisenhower warned of diverting the nation’s tax dollars to war at the expense of the people.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,” he said. “This world in arms is not spending money alone.

“It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.