A Dance With Silence

I have never written a testimonial to anyone.  I never bothered, perhaps believing I didn't have words that could capture what I think about any particular person.   Sometimes, I took things too seriously that I put myself into an insurmountable position of inaction.  But the truth was, I never tried and took the time to just do.

...I didn't particularly expect that you seem to understand me that well.  But words do come to their own.  The writer's hand can listen as well as write.  The reader's eyes can say as much as read.  But beneath a truth said by your testimonial, I realize that it is followed by a problem I have lived most of my life with.  Man is not an island.  It is not enough that I am.  But I also do.  Everyone is different in his/her understanding of matters, and understanding is a matter of relations, and thus of doing.

...

I've always been silent.  Have I always been that way?  I wonder...   There is a truth to that -- I'd tell a lot and say a little.  I might say something.  But that may only mean I'm not saying a lot of things...

Sometimes, when I write, I only touch several thoughts without giving them tangible forms.  The world is full of interests and wonders.  And we only live fleeting moments compared to the vastness there is...

Why do you believe that every human being is happy?  Should we perhaps attempt to know what happiness is, before we can discuss?  If I attempt to interpret what you mean, I can by chance imagine an avenue by which what you say makes sense.  But happiness to everyone can be so different, in a practical level.  In our limited persons, we can only seek to define, and then pose a truth.  I think I am happy.  But what does that say?  I can be happy about something and be unhappy about something.  But then, if one asks me, I know that I will say I am happy.

... what lead you to ask the question of religion?  I must say, however, but that I am Catholic is not an issue that I have given a lot of deep "faithful" thoughts.  It maybe a simple refusal to concretize my ideas on God, or a refusal to dismiss ideas that seem to run contrary to popular Catholic beliefs.  I dislike rigidity and a closed system.  Is that lack of faith?  But consider that I come from a scientific and mathematical background.  I like logic.  Is God ideal?  There are elements, mysteries in religion that do not conform to my background.  Those aspects I have no answer for, or can answer only in a limited way, I usually defer thoughts on.

And there I go again.  I write while dwelling in abstractions.  Did I say so little?  Yes, words do have a life of their own.  And words dance with silence.  We need to listen.

-from a correspondence between two strangers