Talk to listen

Humans have a strange characteristic: they can either talk for hours or sit in silence. Sometimes we need to alternate between the two.

A good, long, talk – and sometimes a good cry – is often the best cure for anything that is bothering you. It works best if there is a recipient. A friend who understands you and can soothe your aching soul.Someone who was with you before a crisis, now during it, and will remain even after it is gone. Talking about our problems alleviates our sense of burden,the pressure we feel because of them. But it has an even greater effect when you know that you’re talking to someone who may not be able to relate, but certainly comprehends your troubles. They don’t need to offer solutions. Just to be there and listen. Often, that is more important. Because most people don’t listen. They only hear what they want, all the while preparing their response for when it is their turn to enter the discussion.

Perhaps that is also the reason why it is difficult to have intellectual conversations nowadays. That ability to just sit and talk, about anything and everything. To speak without fear or regrets or limitations. To talk for hours about life and all is challenges and what makes it all worthwhile.

There is a very valid saying related to this: “Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people”. Consider what the talk is about next time you socialise. You’ll better realise your level of interaction.Of course, we’ve all found ourselves discuss all three at some point or other. But it is the time you devote to each that matters.

Talking helps us to externalise what we’re hiding inside. It also helps us better understand ourselves and our own needs. What we’re feeling and what we want to do about it. Most of the time we don’t talk so that others can offer solutions, we talk so that we better acknowledge our problem and find the way to solve it ourselves and help us heal. Support, however, is always welcome.

The thing is, to choose to talk. For whenever we say “I can’t”, “it is not my fault”, “I’m not responsible”, “there is no other way”, we are merely lying to ourselves. There is always a choice. And it is one made by us.

Advertisement

A woman’s silence

She would often wander in a world no-one could understand. The real world made no sense anymore. She would retreat in the attic and later in the bedroom or living room. She would watch the time run by as she lost herself in books or let her mind gaze at TV series. She didn’t care anymore if she was alone. Now, it was something she actually looked forward to.

In the cold winter days, she would sit on a couch wrapped in a warm blanket with the company of her fluffy soft-toys. In their big glimmering eyes, she would find comfort. In there, she saw the reflection of who she wanted to be; who she was striving to become; who few would appreciate or, even more, understand.

Perhaps that was what was most disappointing. That no matter how much she explained her point of view, hardly anyone would see it. It is easy to put the blame for everything on someone else; it is even easier to dismiss all their views as wrong simply because they don’t agree with yours.People only listen to what they want to hear. And whatever you say, they will only focus on what they think is important, rendering everything else unsaid. She was tired of having to repeat herself so often, and not being heard. She was not understood. And that was perhaps worse than not being appreciated.

So, she drifted away. She had grown weary of trying to change a world that so adamantly refused to do so. She stopped insisting. Her grandfather once told her that people should fear a woman’s silence, for a woman who stops moaning and more so talking is one who has simply given up. A woman’s silence is her loudest cry. But few can truly realise that. Even fewer are bold enough to do something about it.

It’s easy to keep demanding that everyone else changes. The real courage is to admit that you need to change too. And to do it.

Magic waterfalls

©Dale Rogerson

“Look”. She saw his hand rise and point to the source of that calming sound they were hearing a while now. It was still the beginning of winter and the water was flowing rapidly.

She always loved that sound it makes. She found it stole your troubles and drowned them into its soothing flow.

“Listen”. She said. They stood mesmerised with the sunrays bathing their faces. It was a welcome touch in that cold morning.

Whatever happened, waterfalls had a magical way of making everything better. And of bringing them closer together.

Water, after all, is the source of life.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

How are you…you?

What if you woke up one day and found someone had stolen your identity? How could you prove you were who you say you are? What truly makes you…you?

Yes, sounds familiar. If you’ve seen Unknown, the scenario reminds you of this.

But think about it. How would you describe yourself? Don’t think professionally, so no CV references and all that. Think adjectives. What makes you stand out from the crowd? How are you different from every other person on this planet?

Whether we like it or not, we are different because of what we experience, but more so, because of what we feel.

We may not want to pose this question – of what makes you you – to other people, out of fear of what they may say. Some people worry about what others think of them. What they truly and sincerely believe, not merely what they show. Because all of us have an opinion about others. It is formed from the very first time we meet the other person and it evolves according to the development of our relationship.

So, others can speak of you, even if you don’t want to.

But how do you describe yourself? And not in that narcissistic sense where you see everything on you as close to perfect.

What distinguishes you? What makes you worth the meet?

And deeper of all – how would you defend yourself against someone who had stolen your identity?

“We live in a world full of people who are satisfied with pretending to be someone they are not” – Tommy Tran

“Unless we base our sense of identity upon the truth of who we are, it is impossible to attain true happiness” – Brenda Shoshanna

Where a bridge could lead

©Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

It was under the rubble of an old bridge that it all started. A bright rainbow-filled day that followed a rainy all-nighter. The clear, still water under the bridge reflected their smiling, still shy, faces.

No-one ever really knows what they’re getting themselves into.

At first sight it was all ideal. It was a meeting dominated by charm, delight, humour and those sneaky butterflies that roam around in your stomach when you’re super excited about something.

Intuition was asleep. Or, like us all, wasn’t sure about where all this would lead.

A bridge, though, is symbolic. It joins two parts.

 

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Everywhere and nowhere

There is a ‘dare’ going around online, prompting you to consider if you could live in an isolated cabin without internet or TV for something like six months. The prize would be one million dollars (or euros or whatever your currency is). To some this seems like torture. It is an unthinkable feat not designed for the modern age. Because nowadays our mobile phone runs out of battery and we run around in panic like headless chicken searching desperately for a charger, something that will keep us connected to the (virtual) outer world.

The problem is that a few decades ago, people did survive without internet and TV. In fact, they probably had a better quality of life too. We don’t appreciate that, let alone acknowledge it.

We feel the urge to be everywhere at once, to do everything even when it is beyond our capacities. We want to show that we are around, doing things, being places. But in the process, we are everywhere and nowhere. We do things simply to cross them off our lists, or to post them online, or simply for the sake of doing them. We don’t enjoy them, though. We don’t revel in what we’re doing. We drive and think of the other things we need to do in the day. We go on a trip and consider what we need to do when we get back. We dream of holidays but don’t experience life.

It is a shame. Because in the age where anything is possible, where we have the infrastructure, resources and technology to do so many things to help us move ahead, we choose to remain backward. Both in mind and in society as a whole.

Sculpted memories

©J.S. Brand

The things you remember are the things that are strange. The ones out of the ordinary, that are often nothing like expected.

When Mario told her he had a surprise-picnic planned, what immediately sprung to mind was something romantic, in a green field, with tall trees, flowers, silence and plenty of fresh air for them to breathe in and relax. They would also preferably be alone.

What happened though, was something Marisol could never forget. Mario took her to the neighbourhood park, where he prepared a mini-barbecue, under a sculpted tree.

He said this would surely create a lasting memory.

 

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Admitting to the problem

They say that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. In fact, it is true that more people would learn from them mistakes if they weren’t so busy denying them. In the same light, in order to begin to find some peace of mind, we need to acknowledge that we have none.

In our modern age, being (too) busy is a problem. But the thing is, we think that it is a privilege, an asset, or even something to be proud of – we actually boast of being busy. Of not having time for anything, not even of living.

We have lost touch of the things that matter. Instead of talking to each other and trying to help one another, to learn from each other and mutually improve, we have become so competitive that what dominates our relationships is hypocrisy and shallowness.

What is more, we don’t know how to relax anymore. We have become so obsessed about constantly having something on our minds and in our hands that we turn into inexplicably nervous freaks when we are faced with “doing nothing”. Keeping calm is not a concept the modern world understands. Yet, we so love to cant about it everywhere, we have drawn numerous gifs and images and posters and anything you can imagine, that begin with “keep calm and…”.

Let’s face it. We have become a troublesome kind. We are so afraid of being left out of pretty much anything that we create trouble where there is none, do things we don’t really want to do, and adopt styles that don’t fit us simply because they are the current trend. In the process, we choose to follow the crowd than stand out in our own unique way. And, like everyone else, we criticise or adore whoever and whatever is ‘in fashion’ at the time.

We don’t think anymore. And that is perhaps the most pitiful and severe problem of us all.

The lure of a bookstore

For Martia, walking into a bookstore was like walking into a magic realm. In the words of Jen Campbell, “you see, bookshops are dreams built of wood and paper. They are time travel and escape and knowledge and power. They are simply put, the best of places”. In fact, she could hardly ever walk into a bookstore and not leave without buying something.

Martia’s life revolved around books. She loved reading, wrote a blog about books and worked as an editor in a publishing company. She lived and breathed books.

Yet, ironically, she could not find the words to describe how much she adored these tomes of paper. As environmentally-unfriendly they were, there was nothing like the smell that transpired when flicking the pages of a new book. Used books also held their secrets gripped within their pages. Because no one could read a book and remain the same person.

Martia had learned to appreciate even more people who read. Not on an electronic device, but the actual paper copy. Books, she said, made our minds sharper, life more exciting, they lift your spirits, lower your stress levels and make your heart more compassionate. Books always had something new to say. And there is a book on almost anything by almost anyone. What you should be careful to do is pick out the right copy – find the book that says something, in language worthy of the paper it is printed on, that makes you think and makes you want to change things.

“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking” – Jerry Seinfeld

Be the chess player

©Jeff Arnold

Chess is a game of tactics. One where forethought wins. It embodies life skills.

That’s why her grandfather taught her how to play since she was only a child. He said a chess game resembles life in that you shouldn’t waste even a single move.

At first she could never win a game. But like a Japanese proverb says, “we learn little from victory, much from defeat”.

Every movement of the chess pieces had to be carefully planned. It required independent and cautious thinking. She learned to move in silence and only speak when it was time to say ‘checkmate’.

 

“Chess helps you to concentrate, improve your logic. It teaches you to play by the rules and take responsibility for your actions, how to problem solve in an uncertain environment” – Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov

 

Also part of Friday Fictioneers