The power of expressing your feelings

"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth". Benjamin Disraeli.

Expressing what you feel, what you think, what you like or don't, what you need, what you dream about, what your night was like, what you're afraid of, your vision of the world and anything you feel like expressing is a liberating act that sets your mind and soul free, and takes away those repressed feeling and the words you've been accumulating in the inside.

We have to start by saying that the freedom of speech and freedom of expression is a fundamental right of the human beings in most of the democratic countries of the world. That means expression is inherent in human beings; it constitutes a very special characteristic that they have developed through language.

The psychologists and psychiatrists study the human mind and the complexities of human behavior. What do they do? Listen to everything that a person has to say and express in different ways, in order to analyze what's inside and to try to help them by becoming a counselor that listens and talks to them, among other things.

So many times we've heard that wise advice: "don't keep your problems inside; talk, have someone listen to everything that you have to say, cry if you need to, don't keep the sadness inside because it will mount up and end up destroying you…". That is simply a very natural and important advice that evokes an essential condition of human beings: the expression of feelings.

Music, art, literature, politics, poetry, photography and many others are excellent examples of important products of human expression. They're nothing more than different ways and constructions of human feelings and visions of the world that have been expressed to let others know about them, and to let those feelings be released from the minds and souls of their authors.

The songs, books, paints, pictures, laws and poems that we have today are so valuable because they constitute the expression of the feelings of millions of people from different places of the world throughout history. They represent the visions that all those minds and hearts built in a specific moment in time from their perception of the world in which they lived, which had determined circumstances. That makes all those words unique and priceless.

Expressing yourself really liberates your soul; it prevents feelings and words from rotting inside you and harming you for longer periods of time. When you say something out loud you're making it a reality, you're accepting it and either letting it go, if you want, or letting it become a part of your life, if that is your wish.

If you learn how to understand what you feel and then turn it into words to let it out, you've gained a very important skill that will help you go through life with less burdens, and that will help you know yourself and let others understand what you have inside.

Sharing your thoughts and feelings can be a very fulfilling act. What you have to say is important; it matters. Somebody, more people than you may think, care about the words that you put together to express yourself. But, if no one's there to listen to you, you can also listen to yourself; just say it out loud and you'll know that you are a bit closer to freedom.

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If translation didn't exist...

"Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament". Milan Kundera.

We live in such a modern world and we are now used to so many technologies and devices that we hardly value or stop to think about the different disciplines and arts that make so many things possible…

There's one good example of great importance because of everything that has been created and transformed thanks to it, and that is translation. Translation has united cultures, societies, artists, writers, businesses, countries and people around the world within the passage of time.

The art of translation has made possible that the most amazing history, poetry and literature works of the greatest thinkers and authors of all times can be read, studied and understood by millions of people that speak hundreds of different languages.

The fact that there are professionals dedicated to study languages and specializing in really knowing the cultural details and customs of different countries and regions has made possible that persons from really faraway places of the planet can establish communication and find that they actually have things in common.

Since there are more than 300 spoken languages in the world, if translation didn't exist, you wouldn't be doing a lot of the things you do in your daily life. For example, you wouldn't be able to watch thousands of movies from directors of different countries because there would be no way for you to understand them, since there wouldn't exist subtitles for you to read the dialogs in your own language.

Also, many television shows that have been adapted from the originals from other countries wouldn't reach your national television providers guide, because they would be in their original languages…Furthermore, a lot of great famous books that have been adapted to the big screen couldn't possibly be so because of the fact that the books are written in the author's native languages, which can't be comprehended by the scriptwriters.

There are countless examples in countless fields that transform your everyday life because of the possibilities that translation has brought to life. The world would be a completely different place and wouldn't be so culturally rich and so full of knowledge if it weren't for translation and, of course, for translators.

Even scientific inventions and science development have advanced much more and faster because of the possibility of uniting the knowledge and the experiments of scientists from around the world that do research and work in their own languages.

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What silence has to say

"Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods". Ralph Waldo Emerson

Silence is, most of the times, undervalued by those people who live immersed in the increasingly faster routines of today's society, where time is precious but is used to buy more time, and where spaces for relax, for reading at the park and for listening to nature are practically extinct.

Today, our cities are full of noise, constructions are all over the place, people yell to be heard, everyone has to say something, cars don't fit in the streets, televisions are always on their highest volume, people walk listening to loud music through their earphones without seeing anything that happens around…

Our society has forgotten about silence. No one seems to care about quiet spaces anymore. It's actually really difficult to find a place where you can easily go and spend a while without listening to all kinds of noises that disconnect you from your inner peace and from that relax instants that you need to go away for a bit.

Go ahead and try this experiment: go to a public place and sit alone in silence, just stay there with yourself and start looking at how other people react. They will probably stare at you with a "what are you doing? Are you crazy?" kind of look…Not a lot of people are aware of the huge value that the essence of silence represents.

The treasure of silence

Silence is a treasure that a lot of poets, writers and artists have valued and though about through time, to the point that they have dedicated entire works, or simple phrases, to describe it, to analyze it, to thank it, to celebrate its existence.

In silence have been created millions of works of art and inventions that are treasures of humanity and that have changed its history forever. Silence has allowed geniuses to find their brilliant ideas, writers to find their words, artists to find their shapes, painters to find their colors, musicians to find their notes, physicians to find their numbers, animals to find their preys and common people to find their way.

Silence represents a precious moment in which a person can listen to his/her own voice to think and make decisions about life, and take new paths in order to achieve specific dreams and goals. Furthermore, silence is need and should become a priority in people's lives…It could do them so much good, especially in the stressful times we live in today.

We do so many things, we run so much every day, we dedicate such a big part of our valuable time to so many worthless details…Without a doubt, anyone could use ten minutes of each day to relax, to sit or just lay in the bed, listening to the words of silence, making peace with life, imagining the dreamed future in pictures and daydreaming about what he/she wants to become…

You could be surprised with what silence can do for you. You may think you lose time if you just stay still without talking or doing anything, but the greatest idea of your life could just be whispered to you in the words of silence.

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Online social networks changed communication forever

Online social networks allow people to know details about other people's lives in a most discreet way

Online social networks are here to stay; they've been created and are so deep into people's lives already, that they will only grow to develop new applications and original ways for people to instantly communicate with friends, family and acquaintances from all around the world.

If Internet, e-mail, chats and instant messaging had changed people's habits, online social networks have absolutely revolutionized people's daily routines, the way they communicate with each other and the way they find out about how everyone's doing on a particular moment. Today, someone won't call a friend, they will send a message through Facebook…

Online social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and del.icio.us occupy big portions of people's time every day, whether it is at the office, in their house or in their spare times.

A recent study found out that the under 35 year olds are totally addicted to these social networks; for example, 39% of Twitter users and 27% of Facebook users under 35 years old check their Twitter and Facebook accounts, respectively, more than ten times a day.

These networks offer activities that people can still do sitting in front of their computers, but that represent free time and relax for their minds, as well as contact with all their friends, acquaintances and family, with whom they can share pictures, exchange messages, have conversations, share opinions, watch videos, listen to their favorite songs, play games, etc.

It's a common space in which people feel that they're not alone when they actually are. They just have a virtual space that they can access any time they want, as long as they have an Internet connection. It's gone so far, that currently a lot of people spend their biggest online social network time in their mobile, rather than in front of the computer. People like the immediacy with which they can show their family and friends where they are or what they just bought, by simply taking a picture with their cell phone and then sending it in seconds…

These networks have an interactive essence that makes them appear as an omnipresent and endless conversation between millions of people all over the world. There's a reason why Twitter's slogan is "Join the conversation"…It's become an addiction that makes people want to publish and share with everyone what they're thinking or doing, or what just happened to them at their office, even what they're eating at the moment or that they're hungry and want chocolate really badly.

Online social networks have made people addicted to know and look into each other's lives: they can see pictures, find out about what others did on the weekend, see the news about the end of a relationship…It's a more discreet way of taking a glance at what goes on with the world and with other people's lives, without asking and without anyone knowing that you where interested in somebody's affairs.

These networks have also created a debate about the risks of loosing privacy when everyone publishes everything without thinking about the consequences. Furthermore, the debate has even reached the security risks that this information disclosure represents. But that'll be good for a future post.

For now, let's just say that online social networks have widen people's opportunities of keeping in touch with their acquaintances from all around the world, and that they represent a great tool for letting everyone know about a business, an idea or an opinion. It's just a matter of being careful and wise about the use of information.

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