Talk, animals.

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I don’t really talk (verbally) with anybody, I never did really, if not under constrain, or for practical needs. As about emotions I never talked about my emotions except perhaps once. I was in a car, reunited with a person I loved. So I told her “I love you”. It was not a declaration, the accent was on that “you”. I meant I didn’t love another woman, of whom she knew about, but rather “her”. It was a (sincere) declaration of choice, not anything other. I had always been reproached by women not to tell them that I loved them. Perhaps they were right: if I said something about my emotions, I would have lied.

When I eavesdrop on conversations between couples on the public space, it’s understandable that you don’t hear declarations about emotions, except in moments of some breaking up. Then they may talk aloud, they may even say aloud “I hate you”, they my reproach each other things. But, apart from the fact that more engaging statements are probably said only in situations of intimacy, when nobody may overhear you, perhaps in a bed, this talk is not ruled by sincerity. Attraction may do much to extract words from you. There is also e beautiful expression in English: “pillow talk”- As it is well known, women are employed largely by the intelligence agencies, to extract information from the “pillow talk” .

Apart from all this, what I hear in conversations between couples is not truth. We are such complicated accumulations of memories, desires, aims, hostilities, dissatisfactions and what not that it would be a miracle if, out of this ever changing tangles, you could present the other with the precise image of your state of mind.
And if changing constantly your mood (being bipolar, as say it now) further complicates the picture?

We need other people availability and presence. But they are not so often available in full sincerity and affection, It’s your fault, it’s theirs fault, it’s nobody fault.
Animals? Dogs, cats, apes, dolphins and many other animals succeed in communicate their emotions among themselves and with us, in a free way, without reticence. They have an easier task because they don’t have to turn themselves inside out to communicate, they want to be caressed, they want to play, they want to stay alone. This they can say and they say it and it is reassuring and comforting for us who are exhausted from lying. Call it pet therapy if you like but it works.

There is another field where you can be sincere: it is art, music, painting, all expressions that don’t use words. But we should learn more from animals and use less words. Words have the ambiguity of tools, they can carve, but they can harm.

Yes, we are by nature an inconsistent species, we humans. How many people do you hear say one thing one day, then the complete opposite a few days later. There is a funny saying we have here in the UK (even so, I have not heard it for years) 'fine words butter no parsnips'. Actions do speak louder than words. Yesterday, my friend told me that her father was terminally ill. What could I say in response to something so painful for my friend? 'I'm sorry to hear that', well, of course, but a hug was what was really needed. Sometimes words are used as weapons, not to communicate, but to hurt, confuse, control, bamboozle others.
And what great communicators the mine artists - with no words at all!
Animals never speak but their communications are always sincere.