Babelfish
I bought an Eyewitness Japan travel guide during this past week in order to plan the second phase of my tour to the country later this year and on showing the book to my father he reminded me of my road trip in Florida. Renato, my Brazilian friend, had a Portuguese copy of Eyewitness Florida at the time and while he was driving he asked me to read a segment to him describing our next stop. In case you aren’t aware, I don’t have an ounce of Mediterranean in me (physically), I don’t have any Portuguese nationals in my extended Afrikaans family and have had little or no exposure to the language before. This was of course all the more reason for me to try reading aloud for the hell of it. I didn’t have the remotest idea of what I was reading and expected to be met with great amusement from my travel mates. Turns out however that he understood clearly what I was saying and he translated it back to us. It is an interesting experience when someone else can make out more of what you are saying than you yourself can ever hope to.
February 15th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Don’t you think this is just LIFE!!
How many times have you sat with a friend or family member telling them about this grave position you find yourself in, most of the time they will ask you one or two clarifying questions and then aptly come back with a response that makes the whole situation seen as clear as day! You see that while you are speaking and feeling gibberish other loved ones around you know exactly what you’re on about.
February 17th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
There is definitely an incredible amount of value found in expressing your feelings and thoughts to your family and trusted friends. It is more because in the effort of trying to articulate these things that you clarify your own understanding of them. Many times it is you doing most of the work while those participating can help to broaden your perspective of a particular challenge. What I have experienced is people recycling advice and revealing wisdom that I have given before or already knew subconsciously (and vice versa). I am a great believer in trusting your own inner wisdom and those around you help to facilitate the process of its discovery and verification.
October 20th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
The same is true when one writes down your feelings and situations. Only to find that when you read it a year or so later, that you do on some subconscious level have a vast amount of wisdom, however at that moement in time what you wrote down didnt make too much sense. It also holds true to see how uch wiser one has become since that time! The later often being the most true.
October 21st, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Afflict, writing is a way of thinking a problem through or just reflecting. If you keep the things you write in say a diary or a blog for long time and read it a few years later you would be surprised to see how your situations and ideas changed. Sometimes we forget ourselves, where we came from and written work can be a nice (or shocking) reminder.