why is it so hard to talk to each other & how to break down the expressional wall??

Why is it so hard for you to talk? If someone asks me that, I’ll say, “what for? I talk when I only need to”. Basically, I think that talking has not much effect. Not all kinds of talking. Educational talk is one major exception, of course. If you talk a lot just to persuade or to give an idea to a person, does that guarantee that the person understands it? Or even heard you? In my own personal experiences, I found that talking does not solve a problem much. For example, when I was little, my parents always scolded me whenever I did anything wrong. For me, their nagging and talking were just a waste of time. Usually, I realized that their words were actually a good piece of advice, but being very egoistic, I ‘reminded’ myself that my parents were actually being jealous of my fun life. Soon, I discovered that by plugging my ears to keep all those clattering words from entering, I was able to keep myself below my boiling point. Realizing that scolding alone is not sufficient to teach their daughter about the real world, they resort to physical discipline. I hated it for sure, but those things sure make me a human in this real life.

The same goes for the story “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers”. The father gives advices and sometimes even a little bit of scolding to his daughter whenever he thinks she needs it, whenever she behaves in a way which he dislikes. The daughter does not respond much to the lecture because she thinks that the father is only being over-reacting to her way of life and being over-controlling her adult life. She is a grown-up, so she thinks that she understands her own self better. She also does not bother to defend herself because she knew that her father would not be getting the message she is trying to convey to him. She is aware of the huge language barrier and the generational gap between them. To sum up, people do not talk much because they knew that there’s not much that can be done through talking alone especially if the other party is not willing or does not intend to listen.

The second point is that, people lack the exact words and phrases which are able to express a feeling or emotion exactly. As the world moves on, people are getting more and more selfish with their own personal goals, wealth and recognition. They spend their lives blindly without much effort trying to get to know the spiritual side of life. They do not care about being nice to others and trying to make other people’s life a bit easier. Indirectly, they are actually running away from emotion and feelings. That explains why feelings are rarely discussed between two parties. Then, being lack in familiarity with expressive words, messages or ideas related to emotion, are very hard to be planted into other people’s understanding. Modern movies including this story obviously show that words are not meant to express a feeling. In romance films, lovers confess their love by affectionate and caring acts, not by words. The only words found are only “I love you”. In action movies in which two guys hate each other so much to the extent where they sworn to have their enemy’s head on a spike before they themselves die, words are not used to show their true loathing. Instead, they go on hot pursuits to physically express their hatred towards their foes.

If not with words, then what is the way which we could be more expressive and break down the wall of expressions? My strong opinion would be taking time to express and to let time help to break the emotional barrier little by little. I feel that it’s never easy to express a feeling the right way. For instance, to know how a person feels about us, let time show how he/she can act accordingly. Words do help to convey feelings, but not much. Things that are more said than done does not have the real effect it should. Maybe spending time with each other helps to strengthen and widen the expressive vocabulary. I believe that if one tries hard enough to convey his/her feelings to other people, he/she will succeed in the end, even if only words are used.

why??

I was born in a family, a large one, with three funny sisters and one normal brother. My three normal sisters were born quite a while after I have grown big. I have one normal mom and a funny one. My dad was normal like me. Normal people are normal. Funny people are strange. They’re so big and brown and they have excellent ability in balancing between two legs! I was always scared of them but I loved them so dearly and so did they. My mom gave me milk so that I can grow big and strong, and handsome too. When I was growing, my strange family gave me food and shelter and surely lots and lots of love. Scolding and spanking were never conditional and that was one form of love which I didn’t quite understand at first.

In my family, there was this one weird girl who kept calling me hers. I never understood as I was aware that I belong to everyone equally. After some time, I realized this so called ‘mine’. But I did not belong to this particular girl, but to a different one instead. This one never mentioned anything about making me hers but I grew up to be so strong and so happy because of her. She would hang out with me alone so many times in a day, leaving behind all my stupid siblings babbling nonsense among each other. One thing that I really excelled in was jumping. I could jump really high that sometimes, I could even jump over my giant loving girlfriend with only one huge leap, thanks to my strong, muscular legs, and of course this girl.

I was not very sure about the changing feeling around my home but I felt it alright. My dear twin brother who was very close to me stayed further and further away from me each day. Maybe because he had a funny girlfriend. Hmm... that’s possible. But I had two! Hahahaa. This I could show off. My dad was always busy involving himself in fights which he described as for the purpose of defending land rights. How busy he was, he noticed something ‘evil’ in me. He began to lecture me all day and all night that my mom had to interfere so that everyone could have some real rest. My baby sisters were gossiping things about me while my twin brother said nothing but distanced himself away from me as far as he could.

Maybe all of them were overly jealous of my size, my strength, my ability, my popularity and my good looks. But then, I realized that my strange family also began to dislike me, even my two special sisters. Are they not happy with what I had become? I’m perfect! When things get really really awkward and I really really hated it, I began to voice out. Everyone seem to plug their ears from listening to me so I began to rebel. I made my baby sisters scared till they cried. I even create a conflict with my twin brother. Although he never seemed to be interested in fights, I forced him to do till my dad had to break us apart. Then after that, I hated my dad. I also showed how monstrous I could become to others in front of my great strange family, including my two girlfriends.

Why not things stay the way they were? I’m still me. Just, stronger and greater. Why don’t you all just accept the fact?

One day, one seriously wrong day, I was called upon my great mother, the head of the family. “Blechy, we’re going to take you out for some fresh air. Somewhere not very far from here. You’d like it wouldn’t you?” Then, she smiled an obvious fake smile while my dear two sisters started to sob.

Wait. Something is not right. Something is definitely wrong and I didn’t know what..

-will be continued-