is the greatest gift man has. It is an ancient human gift.
Ursula K. Le Guin says: 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.
We may try to be as clear as possible, choose the right words, put what we are saying in a context, use the right tone of voice, even, and yet there is always that niggling thought at the back of our mind of whether we have been able to convey what we wanted. There is that bit of uncertainty, no matter how small that bit is. We wonder if we have been able to communicate what we actually want to say. We have all been in situations where our enthusiasm has met with a cold, frosty look. We have been in circumstances where we are conveying some good news only to be looked at with skepticism. We have been in situations when an innocent remark has drawn blood. There have been occasions when an off-the-cuff statement has got a scathing response.
And yet, we want to talk....we want to communicate, because, there have been times when we have had pleasant conversations, meaningful dialogues and happy chatting.
Human communication is more than just information giving. In talking with each other, we actually share a part of ourselves.
In our humanness we want - crave - communication precisely because it is a giving and receiving of our self with another self. However, we also need to be careful we don't hurt another person, because our wounded hearts and bruised sensibilities may get scarred badly by wrongly chosen words. Our communication should not be such that we are unaware of everyone and everything but our own intense need to communicate. And, most of all, we must never try to confuse a person with our communication.
Buddha says we should talk only if we can improve the silence. This may take time for us to achieve, meanwhile we need to be conscious that communication is a communion of souls...