Shawn L. Bird

I’m thinking today about action and reaction.

We have no way of knowing whether an off-hand comment with no emotional import for us will cause an explosive reaction in someone else. An innocuous observation can suddenly start a chain reaction of events that can be completely unexpected and sometimes horrendous.

Words have their own life once they’ve left you, and you have no way of controlling that life. A pebble is dropped and the rings expand and expand until they’ve touched many unexpected places.

Words can reveal hidden secrets, secret dreams, and powerful truths. Sharing our own secrets, dreams and truths is one thing, but sometimes as Jacob Black says in New Moon, we know secrets that aren’t ours to share. If we accidentally let those out, the reaction that was a pebble ripple to us, might turn out to be a tsunami for someone else, destroying all those beautiful beach front homes they’ve so carefully built up.

It’s no good trying to say it’s not really a tsunami. Perception is reality. If it feels like a tsunami to them, then it is one.

There’s no way to take back the pebble and stop the tsunami. We can only be there to help clean up the wreckage our words have wrought.