I was talking to a therapist friend the other day about the problems humans have with communication. Even the most articulate of us struggle to make our thoughts and feelings known and understood. I ran across this quote by Gustave Flaubert from Madame Bovary, which sums the situation up nicely and with grace...
"Whereas the truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars."
Indeed, even our best efforts at communication can seem like crude rhythms tapped on a cracked kettle, frustrated that we are unable to make music that would make the stars dance.
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