I’ve learnt over the past few days, have a great deal to offer. I realized that there are days when I don’t talk at all other than maybe answer questions, or make a list of things I need around the house… but I seem to have completely given up talking — simple exchange of greetings, chatting before heading home from the gym, chatting with the vendor when I go to get vegetables, chatting with the gardener, and most of all chatting with my daughter…. I realized how silent my home is with everyone immersed in their work, or their reading, or doing their own thing, and I am as guilty of these… In the Kdramas, and the occasional Japanese movie I see, this is the one thing that struck me—how much they talk with each other. Nothing philosophical, or arcane, or of any great ‘value’…just chatting with each other, exchanging their thoughts, or ideas, or impressions….but what harmony it brings about…what a symphony of words and thoughts…and how beautiful is the feeling left behind after this sharing. It’s not always only high-faluting theories, or high-minded thoughts, or serious ideas. It’s also just talk about their homes, people they meet, food they eat or would like to eat, pretty flowers they see in a florist’s shop, the weather, things they have heard or read about….and a genuine interest in each other’s daily ordinary lives…. How enriching this is. Mind you, it is not gossip, though sometimes some threads may creep in….it is just sharing the daily events that happen, the book one is reading, something they got at the neighbourhood store… simple exchange of what’s on their minds. It was so wonderful to see how they chatted when having a meal…not only about the food, but about where they got the ingredients, or which store they shopped at, the recipe, their own versions of the dish, and the memories attached to the food they were eating. Real fellowship… it was not just a grab a bite and say a hello and a good bye, and a see you later kind of meal….it was real fellowship at a meal prepared by someone in the home. Another terrible fault I realized was how often we say the words ‘Oops I have to rush’, ‘ Gosh, look at the time! Got to go’, ‘I have to go now, but let’s meet up’… Is it really so difficult to put things aside for a bit and spend some time just chatting and catching up? And yet, when we do spend time — the relaxed kind of spending time, and not the rushing kind of spending time, how good it feels…What a beautiful, serene aura is created… what bonds are formed… what peace is generated….