Go talk to anyone in any dialect, go speak with anyone in any language, and I bet you haven't said anything but what you are.  You give importance to someone when you listen to them but make sure you weigh what is spoken.  What is spoken are the words coming from our mouths and the things coming from our mouths may be clean or unclean.  The difference between good taste and bad taste is not in the food we eat.  The words we utter will show whether we have good taste or bad taste.  A good word is a token of good taste and a bad word is a symptom of bad taste.  Someone once told me to think before I leap to which I say watch your words for once you have said it you cannot take it back.  The damage is done and the remorse is yours.

 The tongue is the most dangerous part of the human body.  Troubles, disagreements and quarrels are not accidental, they don't just happen, they are provoked by our words.  Showdowns and breakdowns result from shooting words.  Hurt feelings and emotional wounds come from biting words, negative remarks and offensive language.  Drugs, pills and injections cannot medicate the emotional infections caused by spoken words.  People in the medical profession cannot cure emotional injuries; emotional infections are not detected in x-rays and are not located by medical gadgets.  The pain exists and lies deep within yet unheard and unseen.  This is what lethal words have done to its casualties near and far.

 Bad-mouthing is a lingual disease for more worse than bodily injury and sickness caused by germs, bacteria, , parasites and viruses.  Backbiting appears to be a delicious, conversational dessert.  It puts good people in bad light and travels at the speed of sound from mouth to mouth point of reference to the next, and so on and so forth.  A bad word which creates a bad image runs fast like a bullet fired from a gun while a good word moves slowly, requiring a lot of dashing to gain momentum.  President Harry S. Truman was validated when he said, "If there is nothing good you can say about a man, keep your mouth shut."  We can keep our mouths shut but our behavior in effect does not.  And speaking of behavior, an old friend once said, "I was born in a slum but a slum was not born in me."  Gossip, glib talk, loose talk and shop talk imply that a slum is born in some people.  Insofar as I am concerned, I am used to taking insult and I consider the source.

 There is never enough of backbiting and bad-mouthing which have something to do with upbringing rather than education.  There is too much backbiting and bad-mouthing where the competition is intense.  Boys destroy each other when they fall in love with the same girl; girls destroy each other when they like the same boy.  Workers backbite one another when they compete to be ingratiated with their boss.  Doctors bad-mouth one another to get into the graces of a well-paying patient.  Politicians attack one another in their power struggles.  Service providers resort to cutthroat competition to win our business.  We are surrounded by a negatively-charged atmosphere where anything bad that is said is easily believed while anything good that is said gives everyone a reason to doubt.  It is the bad side of someone that we accept as true and it is the good side of someone we hardly believe.  The good and bad side of people can be so deceptive as when a bad person succeeds in putting a good person in false light.

 We lift up a person when we trivialize his weaknesses and magnify his strengths.  We put him down when we magnify his weaknesses and trivialize his strengths.  A good person is not a builder of assets, he is a builder of men.  Words are powerful and telling for they either edify or tear us down.  We choose which role to play as builder or destroyer and that role starts with the kind of words we speak out.  The words that last are written in stone while words that won't last are written on water.  We define ourselves by the role we play, by the kind of words we spread out.  And again, we only weigh what is spoken and the parable of the sower is what we should embrace as a way of life.

 Freedom of speech is a right written in stone but the words we sometimes speak out are not written in stone.  Puffing, bluffing, idle talk, loose talk, glib talk and shop talk are not written in stone.  These types of talk vandalize freedom of speech; they are offensive and yet they are not defamatory.  Newsmen, reporters and politicians are second to none in this marathon of talk shows.  They talk long hours waggling the tongue and wiggling the words.  They fill the public mind with convoluted ideas.  Our thoughts are polluted by too much talk.  We cannot hear them all without becoming dizzy and confused.  Politicians love to talk for they know that we judge them best by their communications skills that overshadow their monkey business.

 Too much talk befuddles simple issues, bloats the facts, blurs the mind, paints the truth and pollutes our thoughts.  People are outspoken because they want to be noticed.  It's the squeaking wheel that gets the grease.  Speak up or shut up is the only way to be understood or misunderstood.  Quiet people are often misunderstood for they are perceived to be dumb in a society where everyone loves to talk.  Smooth talkers and compulsive talkers are top-notch market makers and money makers.  They are good at massaging our egos and exploiting our weaknesses to their advantage.  We can't be too trusting with sweet talk, glib talk, shop talk, loose talk and double talk for they are not straight talk but talks not written in stone.

 Let us remind ourselves of the importance of saying what we mean and meaning what we say.  This is where credibility, respect and trust are either earned or lost.  People who are commercially-minded make a lot of money because truth is a part of their inventory with credibility, trust and respect for sale.  Politicians who are power-hungry have no credibility and have lost our respect and trust because they make a lot of promises they fail to deliver.  Freedom of speech is a right imbued with the impurities of truth through a graffiti of words.  Freedom of expression keeps us constantly bombarded by a riot of ideas coming from all sources and from all directions.  In politics, in business and in religion we don't know what the truth is, who is telling the truth and who is manipulating the truth.  Only God knows what the truth is and that is why in God we trust and no one else.

When it comes to national security, our rights and liberties are no longer written in stone.  When it comes to politics, rule of law gives way to rule of change which is the promoter of growth, the producer of progress and the sponsor of a better life.  When it comes to business, no word is written in stone but the sign of the dollar.  When it comes to economics, nothing is written in stone but supply and demand.  When it comes to capitalism, nothing is written in stone but profits and gains.  When it comes to religion, faith is not written in stone for faith is not truth.  When it comes to science, nothing is written in stone with discovery of the unknown.  When it comes to technology, nothing is written in stone but the evolution of research.  When it comes to government, nothing is written in stone but taxes, taxes and more taxes.  And when it comes to our personal security, hope is bleak because human life is not written in stone.

 

 

Munting Nayon News Magazine