Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.
-Rollo May
Communication is the key to the basic form of living on this planet. To be able to reach out, to be able to put your views on the table and most importantly being able to make the person on the other end understand the point of view in the sense that it was originally designed to be. It is not a logical expectation that one will be successful in wholesomely conveying each and every opinion of theirs. This is exactly where the barriers start to show their presence. The entire phenomenon, of attempting to make an individual grasp a certain thing and that person actually comprehending it, has to go through several hurdles such as silence, gestures, perceptions, cultural differences and many more.
I encountered a similar experience during a visit to Chennai along with two of my other friends. It started while we were on the bus and were supposed to get down at a certain bus stop. A fellow passenger advised us to drop at the following bus stop instead of the prescribed one. The problem with the entire situation was not the language barrier because both the parties were speaking in English, neither did he have intentions of harassing us. It was his inability to understand where we stand as three girls travelling through an unknown state where people speak a starkly different language. We were unable to specify our requirements and constraints to him. However, the bus dropped us in the middle of a highway with a handful of people around. The road had two to three street lamps flickering at considerable distances. It was the first time I travelling only with my friends, without any reference to fall back on, we felt helpless. We tried to book a cab. Now comes the part where technical barriers come into play accompanied by the language barrier. The conversations with the drivers we were assigned was one of the most difficult tasks I had to do in life. We were failing in pinpointing our location because of the obvious reason that we had no idea in what obscure place were we situated and every car kept cancelling on us. The very few people around us were speaking in their vernacular tongues, we had no clue if we were the topic of their discussion or not. It was turning into a terrible nightmare. In the meantime, a fellow passerby helped us. He offered us to share his booked vehicle which was supposed to arrive in sometime. We got in the car with him, as skeptic as we were, we decided to go by our instincts. Only one of my friends was interacting with him while we were in the car, the rest of us were still a bit scared and indecisive regarding our situation. Nevertheless, we were fortunate enough that he turned out to be a genuine man who helped us during our time of need. From this, I picked up a lesson, believing in people and trusting our intuition can help us cope with an otherwise unsolvable case. We finally reached our destination safe and sound.
Another occurrence had taken place with a friend who had been a close companion for quite some time during the second and the third year of college. Whenever our group met up, this particular friend would always bring along her boyfriend with her. All of us are aware of the quality time one needs to spend with their significant others but being with close friends provides a closed quarter for sharing intimate ideas. This is only possible when one is surrounded by the people they completely trust. This invasion of personal space had been bugging the rest of us and we had been pretty straightforward in mentioning our disinterest and annoyance. She took it with a pinch of salt and chose to be with her romantic interest rather than with her friends. There too has been some fault on our part. We could have made the attempt of sitting her down and painting a clearer picture of our intentions and that we had no purpose in hurting her. However, we made our choice as well. We simply cut off all sorts of connections with her. The entire incident, according to me, gives a completely intelligible hint of a barrier of communication in terms of being unable to channel emotions.
These are a few of my experiences where I had faced hindrances in communicating my emotions, my intentions or simply my words. I also have been on the flip side of the coin, meaning, miscommunication has been one of my flaws as well. Therefore, since communication cannot be absolute, we as humans, as sentimental and understanding beings should be more careful while talking to a friend, a family member or any other loved one. It almost falls under our duty to provide a ear of consideration and cooperation.
BLOGBLOG 