“Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it.”
I'm a huge believer in the charm and beauty of language and so,of conversation. Sure, there's lots of communication that's not verbal, apparently way more than language can ever communicate......but I still love the possibilities and potential that human conversation offers. Guess I would, considering how much I love talking :)
In this context, this paragraph from 'Telling is Listening' by Ursula K. Le Guin in 'The Magic of Real Human Conversation' really appealed:
"Every act of communication is an act of tremendous courage in which we give ourselves over to two parallel possibilities: the possibility of planting into another mind a seed sprouted in ours and watching it blossom into a breathtaking flower of mutual understanding; and the possibility of being wholly misunderstood, reduced to a withering weed.
Candor and clarity go a long way in fertilizing the soil, but in the end there is always a degree of unpredictability in the climate of communication — even the warmest intention can be met with frost. Yet something impels us to hold these possibilities in both hands and go on surrendering to the beauty and terror of conversation, that ancient and abiding human gift. And the most magical thing, the most sacred thing, is that whichever the outcome, we end up having transformed one another in this vulnerable-making process of speaking and listening."
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