If you try to look for proverbs and sayings which relate to silence, you will be pleasantly surprised – they are hundreds.
Folk wisdom and high-brow intellectuals of ancientness transferred from generation to generation something like this:
- Speech is silver but silence is golden;
- Blabbermouth;
- Loose lips sink ships;
- To beat the air;
- Loud Mouth/ Big Mouth;
- Zip your lip;
- Silence is a fence around wisdom
There is still a firm conviction in the society that the words have no value but the silence is such a gorgeous acquisition that should be nurtured and promoted.
And, without a doubt, this is exactly what happens. To speak out? Well, you can. But only when you are good at it. Do you simply have your own opinion? Okay. But who needs it? Do you want to make it public whatsoever? Well, you can try. You can’t say anything worthy but at least try. Have you tried? Jibberish! Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
This “you’d better remain silent” is the motto of our days. And this is one of the biggest problems.
For decades the talks were dangerous. To incarcerate for jokes is impossible to imagine now. But it took place in our recent history. The one who is silent knows a lot and doesn’t waste words. A real man must be taciturn. Women are windbags. And children: don’t talk with your mouth full.
And these erroneous statements are ingrained in several generations.
The people, who can’t talk about their feelings and emotions neither about what bothers them, have grown up. They can’t be compassionate, they can’t ask for help. They can’t talk about themselves, about their pains and troubles.
There is a huge amount of topics in our society which shouldn’t be discussed aloud, openly and honestly. The theme of death, for instance. It is practically tabooed. Recollect the feelings when you suddenly find out about the death in your friend’s family and you have to express your condolences. Don’t you put on ice the phone call or visit? Is it easy for you to talk and feel sorry? Social networks alleviated communication on this topic – for example, you can write the words of compassion on Facebook. And I think that this is already the step forward out of the silent circle.
My friend was loosing a terminally ill husband. The diagnosis was inconsolable, the husband was lying at home, the family prepared for funerals. And the friend talked to her husband. About everything. First and foremost, about their life. She mentioned good and complicated moments, asked about feeling, told about how she would live after her beloved’s death. The man who was passing away was ready to talk about death. And they together molded the family life after his… The relatives who watched this dialogue were shocked. How?! How a mortally ill person can be treated like this? How could she upset him, how could she grab the last hope from him?!
The friend says the years had passed but those talks turned out to be the pivotal ones to understand oneself. To live on. To have answers to important questions. And not to lose mind after the death of the one who was the most central in life.
Around twenty years ago, Arthur Aron, the psychologist, carried out the experiment. He invited a man and a woman, who were strangers to each other, to answer 36 questions together. Then they had to silently look into each other’s eyes for 4 minutes. Six months later he and she were ready to get married.
This survey is known as “36 questions about love” and answers to its questions make the vulnerable sides open. That, according to the psychologist, helps to build rapprochement.
When I learned about these questions, I suggested my husband answer to them. Together. I decided not to read the questions beforehand.
It’s worth saying that I know my husband since kindergarten, we were neighbors and before getting married we had been dating for several years. We are married for 28 years. And we talk, discuss moments, news, books, films and the like. It seemed that what might be new and unexpected there?
The husband agreed. We needed only some free hours so that we could tune in candor, had a proper mood and nothing disturbed us.
And so we started to put our conversation aside. We did it countlessly. To tell the truth, I was scared. What if there was something I wouldn’t like to say aloud? I even gave up and googled the questions allowing myself to peep at the first two ones. I honestly said about this to my husband.
After all, we found the time and knuckled down to answer in turn. It wasn’t scary, it was difficult. Especially to my not very talkative husband. It turned out that we have a lot of hidden and undiscussed. It turned out that talking about the feelings is unusual and embarrassing. It turned out that knowing each other for decades we didn’t know each other.
This is about personal feelings. But they are reflected at what is happening in society.
A fresh and tragical example about the girl who froze to death in the Zhytomyr region. I will remind the ones who don’t know. In the middle of the night, at 18 degrees frost, the girl got off the shuttle bus, because she had forgotten a wallet with money at home and had no 25 hryvnias to pay for travel. The ones say that the bus driver forced her out, the others that she herself got off the bus at the next stop when the driver was loading the bags of another passenger.
The details of the tragedy are being investigated. But whatever the results might be, they won’t revive the person. But for us, we have to draw conclusions. Because this is also about the inability to ask for help, to explain how you feel, to voice the problem.
Of course, the situation started changing during the last years. The school principal recently told me that they teach children self-presentation skills. Because children can’t do it. Actually, often the adults can’t do it either. Because in their childhood they were taught: your deeds must talk for you, fewer words – more deeds and other jibberish.
Lately, people are willing to attend events in the format of discussions and dialogues. It is felt that the need to talk is acute and necessary. To talk about the fate of the country and one’s own, about fears and hopes, about relationships between children and parents and about many many other things.
And we shouldn’t be scolded for that we are hard to talk. We mostly scream and argue. We don’t listen and interrupt each other.
We all have to scream ourselves out. In order to learn to listen later. And understand. And only then to feel each other.
Zoya Kazanzhy