“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; and in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.” ~Kahlil GibranI think there's a little bit of truth in that statement. I don't agree entirely - I clam up when I'm not at peace with my thought - but the idea that talking kills the thinking process is intriguing. Sure, sometimes it helps to talk things out, but once you do the thought is bound to those words. Gibran's cage is a near perfect metaphor: once vocalized, an idea is forever framed. I'd rather stay quiet but pensive and wait my reeling thoughts out.
And that's all I have to say (or not say) about that.
2 comments:
Gibran's quote is really deep, but I don't think it applies to me necessarily. I think I do a lot more thinking when I'm choosing the words I want to use to describe a problem or a solution. Usually I learn a lot more about how I feel by listening to myself go off.
If I have a hard time explaining or justifying a reason for something, it's because I myself don't believe it and probably hate it. If it flies right out of my mouth and I can passionately defend an angle, it's usually because I mean it the most.
It's not that I solve problems by talking about how I feel, but at least it's a way to disentangle the thoughts of people around me from what I honestly think. Sometimes, we are influenced too much by other's point-of-view, and I'm sorry Gibran, but talking is how I retain my autonomy.
This is a particularly Eastern idea, I think. In Buddhism, for instance, meditation is meant to teach a person to focus on things as they are, to get beyond concepts. Words are concepts for experiences, rather than the experiences themselves. So it's true that putting words to things necessarily limits them. But it's also true that that's just about the only vehicle we have for communication.
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