I am sure convinced people invented weapons before they learned how to speak and how to use the word. Otherwise, weapons would be unnecessary. Because nothing can destroy a person or wound the spirit as much as a cruel word. Meanwhile, even today, at the peak of civilization (how self-confident we are) we have not learned the simple truth: the word needs to be handled no less carefully than a sharp saber or atom. This is why the level of disastrous verbal radiation around us is too high for us all. And it is disastrous both for the surrounding people and the speakers themselves.
Such thoughts often come to me when visiting various public places and talk reaches my ears: cooing loving couples, a mother speaking to her daughter, or someone addressing elderly people. Sometimes it is enough just to hear the tone of voice to get the aggressive style of the relationship between people, and the most important thing — total neglect of the interlocutor's dignity. For a person is very sensitive to the slightest nuance of sound addressed to him. The same words can be a holiday for a soul or wound it heavily. Many retain in memory a long list full of the poisonous words ever said about them. Perhaps without thinking about it. I don't know why, but it seems to me that the relationship among the dumb should be much better than among us who have tongues. Of course, they also possess sufficient vocabulary to offend each other. However, there are no intonations in this case. Those brutal, categorical or indifferent intonations fill our universe and make it hostile to everyone.
The worst thing is that such intonations are characteristic of common conversations, which are far from being conflicts. In many families a baby immediately after birth finds itself in an environment where people do not talk to each other, but shout — all at all, under any circumstances. Most often it is just a facon de parle, as the French say, it is a manner of talking in a family, but this manner builds the character of the relationship. Children who are always being yelled at cannot see the reason why they cannot yell at their grandfather or grandmother, elderly parents, neighbors, etc.
The habit of telling the blunt truth can be destructive also. There are many things which are not worth mentioning without the need to do so. At least for the sake of preserving a good mood of your family members, which is quite a weighty reason. But sometimes it is so hard to resist. What harm is there in telling the blunt truth to your female friend: "You look so awful today"? It can mean a ruined day for her; and however nice she might feel before, such words will be effacing, and she will become really "awful". There are people who keep such words on call. Apparently, because they are affected by a special kind of blindness: they can see only bad things but not good ones.
Many people are convinced that everybody needs "to let off steam" once in a while. It is known, for instance, that in big offices the Japanese put the firm president's visage in special places. It serves as a scapegoat, and everyone can approach it and tell it everything he or she thinks about the president. Under some circumstances the scarecrow can even be beaten. People believe there is some release afterward. Unfortunately, we choose those around us — at home, in public transport, or at work — to serve as such scapegoats. As for me, I have not much trust in the theory of letting off steam, for I know that there are no worse memories than those about cruel — with or without reason does not matter — words which you have ever said being nervous. Many years later you would pay any price just to take them back. And there is nothing better than to recall — afterward, when a confrontation is over — that everything black and bitter you used to keep in you mind has not been ever articulated. Let's remember Fedor Dostoevsky's maxim: "Silence is noble, safe, and beautiful." Let our words be only good messengers.






