The sound of reaction has become a roar inside my head. Calm people I know have been inciting others in what should be debate into a war of words. Those around them have fueled the fire of anger and demanded verbal blood, vast actions of cleansing away by issuing angry responses then unfriending in the most public of ways, a sort of crowd sourced humiliation to the accused but not the guilty.
That was me, has been me and at times is me. I know what it’s like to lose the plot of understanding and fire with both barrels blazing and not caring about collateral damage.
It came to me part of the problem, or at least my problem is this ability to instantly reply and respond. When I do for the most part it isn’t what I really want to say. I have heard it said never regret things in your life, but my truth is I do have regrets – many in fact. And the vast majority of the regrets are things I have said in anger or haste. I have lost count on how many times I have had to say sorry because I didn’t stop and think before I just lashed out.
Now in this age of instant Tweets I have to come to my conclusion that I communicate best when I write and not respond. It is at these times, when I have to review my message, editing the words carefully to make sure my response isn’t just measured but also meaningful, that I do say the right thing. And I don’t just mean the right thing to keep me from hurting people, but the right thing to be congruent as to who I want to be.
Great words can do great things – most of all the can inspire us and make us feel so deeply we are there with the author.
Today please indulge me as I post this letter from Helen Keller. For those of you who don’t know who she is, she was a renowned author and activist who was deaf and blind. Here she wrote to the New York Symphony Orchestra after a performance was played on the radio in 1924.
See how her words don’t inflame, instead they rise beyond the din of her own disability and make one realize how powerful good kind words can be. Please enjoy her enjoyment.
93 Seminole Avenue,
Forest Hills, L. I.,
February 2, 1924.
The New York Symphony Orchestra,
New York City.
Dear Friends:
I have the joy of being able to tell you that, though deaf and blind, I spent a glorious hour last night listening over the radio to Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony.” I do not mean to say that I “heard” the music in the sense that other people heard it; and I do not know whether I can make you understand how it was possible for me to derive pleasure from the symphony. It was a great surprise to myself. I had been reading in my magazine for the blind of the happiness that the radio was bringing to the sightless everywhere. I was delighted to know that the blind had gained a new source of enjoyment; but I did not dream that I could have any part in their joy. Last night, when the family was listening to your wonderful rendering of the immortal symphony someone suggested that I put my hand on the receiver and see if I could get any of the vibrations. He unscrewed the cap, and I lightly touched the sensitive diaphragm. What was my amazement to discover that I could feel, not only the vibrations, but also the impassioned rhythm, the throb and the urge of the music! The intertwined and intermingling vibrations from different instruments enchanted me. I could actually distinguish the cornets, the roll of the drums, deep-toned violas and violins singing in exquisite unison. How the lovely speech of the violins flowed and plowed over the deepest tones of the other instruments! When the human voice leaped up trilling from the surge of harmony, I recognized them instantly as voices. I felt the chorus grow more exultant, more ecstatic, upcurving swift and flame-like, until my heart almost stood still. The women’s voices seemed an embodiment of all the angelic voices rushing in a harmonious flood of beautiful and inspiring sound. The great chorus throbbed against my fingers with poignant pause and flow. Then all the instruments and voices together burst forth—an ocean of heavenly vibration—and died away like winds when the atom is spent, ending in a delicate shower of sweet notes.
Helen Keller
