Communication Breakdown

The human animal is expressive. We started expressing ourselves through pictures, and drawings, storytelling through the generations, wrote cryptic massages on papyrus. Until one day the Chinese invented the paper and Gutenberg invented printing press in Europe. And that was the beginning of it all. Ability to have more than one copy of the same information spread that information far and wide from word of mouth and story-tellers to books and papers.

Hello darkness, my old friend,
Ive come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

A similar revolution came with the invention of the telephone and the Internet, the television and the radio. Each one with its own merits and demerits brought the world into our living room and information at our feet. And communication was never as easy as it is today. Just pick up that phone (mobile ) or just email /chat/ voice chat and there it is – almost anywhere almost anyone is always there to talk.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.

And yet, in this era of global satellite connection are we slowly losing our ability to communicate successfully?
Is the message getting across the same way we want it to be?
Are we mis-communicating?
Or have we simply lost the human touch?

Fools said i,you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence.

Face to face conversation has several advantages – eye-contact, face reading, body language. Much is said through the unspoken words. Much is understood without even trying to read minds.
As our lifestyle spins at nerve-racking speed, and no one has any time or energy or the effort to understand another human being.
Telephone, Internet, email and chatting has connected the world but have they really brought anyone any closer?
Are we beginning to grow apart with our inability convey what our eyes speak or our minds read over the phone or chat?
Its just a voice at the other end and that voice sometimes shows a range of emotions that are indefinable or even sometimes misleading.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whispered in the sounds of silence.

But what can we do. The good old letter writing days are over. With globalization, families and relations spread all over the world, relationships are locked up like Genie in a bottle waiting for a chance to get out of the box and face the person in flesh.
As our work, and other errands take us away from our near and dear ones, it becomes a constant battle to keep the flow of communication alive and kicking without any traces of mis-interpretations. That is the curse of the modern mechanized world – where one hears but no longer listens, speaks but no longer communicates.

There is no silence, but then there is no satisfaction also.