Ethos, Pathos, Logos

The Shape of Our Listening

When new information reaches us, it travels three ancient pathways:

• Ethos : the trust we place in the messenger.
• Pathos: the emotional current that stirs us to care.
• Logos : the logical bridge that leads us to understanding.

These are the great rivers that feed human connection and learning. But rivers, too, are shaped by the land they cross and the land, in our case, is made up of our inner beliefs, many unseen and long unexamined.
Latent -ismsWithin the soil of the human experience, isms take root — some becoming sturdy foundations that nourish our growth, and others creeping More: racism, sexism, and their many cousins quietly shift the ground beneath us. When we unconsciously distrust someone’s ethos because of their gender, race, or background, we close ourselves to the fullness of their message. When pathos fails to touch us because of old, unspoken biases, logos often falls on rocky soil.

I know this truth intimately.
As a Black female mathematician from Cleveland, I learned early that an audience’s -ismsWithin the soil of the human experience, isms take root — some becoming sturdy foundations that nourish our growth, and others creeping More could alter the entire shape of a meeting before I even spoke a word. My very presence could create turbulence in the flow of ethos and pathos.
So, in business, I adapted. I made my logos, my logic, my work, my evidence, so impeccable that it could not be denied. In many spaces, I leaned hard into reason to bypass the gates that feeling and trust had locked.

But life, especially the life of the Monkey Man within us taught me something deeper. The Monkey Man doesn’t care about my equations or proofs. He isn’t moved by my credentials. He moves by feeling, by story, by the timeless dance of emotion and meaning. To him, logos without soul is just noise.

And so, I retrained myself.
I chose to weave my entire being; mind, heart, history, presence into all I create. I learned to trust that the Monkey Men in others would have to wrestle with their own training. It was not my job to force love or trust into unwilling hands. It was my calling to embody the fullness of myself, and to let my ethos, pathos, and logos speak as one.

As you move forward, I invite you to reflect:

• Where in your life does an unconscious -ism tilt the ground?
• Where do you demand logic, but resist trust or feeling?
• Where do you sense the Monkey Man within you pushing away something true, simply because it didn’t “look” or “feel” right at first glance?

Healing the way we listen is as vital as healing the way we speak.
The work is within – always.