Should I start with a typical “Humans are social creatures.” sort of sentence? Nah, that just takes away all the fun from blogging or posting or shit posting or whatever the hell it is. Yes, it’s obvious, I am being vague. If I became forthcoming from the start, then what’s the point of all this.

Even though I hinted somewhat with the first sentence, that isn’t what I am actually talking about; maybe it’s partially related. Can I interest you in a story?

Image Source

Toby. He is a witty guy, although he barks more than he bites. He always has to prove that he is smarter than the rest of the people in the room. The talks; oh the big talks, often they appear nothing more than empty vessels. As always, he’s unstoppable. How do you feel if someone asks you to shut up? Yes, he’s often told to shut up, but since when does he listen! Even if you’re silent, he’ll keep talking so much that you’ll be forced to react. Often his talks aren’t nice, you can relate them to “punch-in-the-gut” or “pride crushing”; otherwise why would you react! He should have been born with a remote control to turn his volume up and down, it’s unfortunate. It just happens so, one day Toby was playing cards with his friends and as expected, he was undermining their skills and luck; always patting his back. None of his other friends said anything but “can you shut up” or “should I get duct tapes for you” but he was fixated. This antics have become a force of habit for him, and he won’t even realize that what he’s doing may be annoying to others. His friends went mute and didn’t say a word to him or to each other, but kept glancing at one another. But Toby was losing more than he was winning; he didn’t notice at all. Every time Toby won, he was boasting more and more, and every time any of his friends won, he was referring to it as sheer luck. Soon enough his chips were emptied, and he had nothing to play with; the others once again looked at him. Once again Toby cheered himself to keep playing, so he borrowed some chips from his friends and played some more and he had no other choice but to accept defeat.

They were smirking at one another; after telling him to keep quiet, he never did, but this defeat cut his tongue off; yet they said nothing to him after giving up. Maybe he shouldn’t brag as much as he did; maybe he should focus on being better in real than claiming unjustifiably, or maybe luck wasn’t on his side that day. Falling face first is perhaps the best way for him to learn what to do and what not to, but also it’s important from the lesson that he learnt. Then again, he has been doing it for years; is it going to be that easy to change his true colors? I doubt it, but he can still try to and maybe there’s hope for him after all.

We are sociable beings after all; even a loner talks to at least one other person except him. People talk in all forms; even silence is a means of communication, and it speaks in volumes. At times while your opinions matter the most, other times your silence is valued.

Speech is silver, silence is golden

This proverb is used so much but often misinterpreted or misused. We’re not required to be permanently mute but we do have to recognize at which point our words would have an effect and at which point they don’t. It’s better not to waste any words in a situation where your viewpoint is thwarted. Sometimes the situation itself is so ridiculous that all you can do is keep your mouth shut. Even though I don’t pursue that route too often, I understand the wisdom behind it. How many times does it happen, even after warning, you end up doing the same thing? These tactics may annoy some others but it may also cause you to be distracted and that may lead to ultimately being blindsided to some other factors which perhaps can cause you harm.

A wise accepts being a fool and also his/her mistakes, but it’s a fool who never admits to his/her shortcomings. And while it is our wisdom that allows us to hold our tongue in a futile argument or not to create a chaos, it’s also our foolishness and pride that spiral things out of proportions. Not everyone will point to us the mistakes we are making and not always we're open to criticism and own up to where we're wrong.

Words, spoken or unspoken, hold substantial power and we hold that power. How we use that power remains with us.