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Inadequate!

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by rgsrinivasan, Jun 5, 2014.

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  1. Jun 5, 2014 #1
    rgsrinivasan

    rgsrinivasan IL Hall of Fame

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    Time and again, I realize that I am not a man of words. Not definitely one for the occasion. No, I am not harsh on myself too. In fact, the very little that I know about myself includes this. Fine, enough about the "I, me, myself" talk. Let me post the areas where we normally get stumped.


    • How can we define taste of ghee?
    • How about that fantastic smell when it is about to rain?
    • How can we say how it feels when sitting near a hot source in chill climate and vice-versa?

    We have not much of alternatives other than using known adjectives for both quality and relative quantity. Is it not?

    Thinking a bit more, do I know how to express what I feel clearly, even to my dear ones? How does it feel, when you get a hug, something that you like, even the warming up and a new light coming to the face of a dear one upon seeing us, though we may not always return the same? Its not that I am lacking gratitude, but just whatever I do won't even measure up to an iota of what they do.

    And expanding that even further, even our very own eyes have blind spots and that our power of smell is so less compared to man's best friend. My aim is not just to say how much less we have. Otherwise how did we even achieve so much? I am just saying that we should be aware of our own limitations. How do we respond to the news of the demise of someone whom we know? What comes first to you then? I know that our answers might vary as we get older, but that general feel of being inadequate enough to brace it for many days [if it happens to be someone closer], to console the affected, to be there without necessarily saying something, to even do something mundane to get something going.

    There is a saying that a knowledgeable person is one who knows what he doesn't know. And that gets more refined as he / she expands the knowledge further. Of course I know that even this attempt is inadequate, as it never fully conveys what I intend to say, and that proves what I said in the beginning. It makes us a bit better to accept our flaws, both by biological order [which we can't change] and by what we had acquired.

    I know this for sure - I know nothing!
     
    rgsrinivasan, Jun 5, 2014
    rgsrinivasan, Jun 5, 2014
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  2. Jun 5, 2014 #2
    ragapriyaa

    ragapriyaa Silver IL'ite

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    Sir, you say you are unable to express yourself. But how wonderfully you have expressed what you could not express! Thank you ,as this has set me thinking about various situations wherein we fall woefully behind. And anyway, mere words can never bring out all our feelings. Like they say in Sanskrit, tat sat.
     
    ragapriyaa, Jun 5, 2014
    ragapriyaa, Jun 5, 2014
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  3. Jun 5, 2014 #3
    GoogleGlass

    GoogleGlass IL Hall of Fame

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    Good one and adequate enough on inadequate - Rgs.

    when the knowledgeable one says I know nothing - he is respected;
    when others say you know nothing - he is made fun of.

    rgs the former and gg the latter :)
     
    GoogleGlass, Jun 5, 2014
    GoogleGlass, Jun 5, 2014
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  4. Jun 6, 2014 #4
    rgsrinivasan

    rgsrinivasan IL Hall of Fame

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    Thanks Ragapriyaa, for being the first to respond to my inadequate post. :)
    Happy to receive a first from you. A request - Please do address me as 'rgs'. Thats enough. And your feedback is so good, especially, the last statement. -rgs
     
    rgsrinivasan, Jun 6, 2014
    rgsrinivasan, Jun 6, 2014
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  5. Jun 6, 2014 #5
    rgsrinivasan

    rgsrinivasan IL Hall of Fame

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    Thanks GG for your feedback. Happy to get one of yours any day. Besides, a small correction to the last statement - rgs should have been placed between 'and', then a comma and gg. :) The former part you can fill yourself. -rgs
     
    rgsrinivasan, Jun 6, 2014
    rgsrinivasan, Jun 6, 2014
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  6. Jun 7, 2014 #6
    jayasala42

    jayasala42 IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Srinivasan,

    Wonderful expression on the 'inexpressible'.It stirs up our imagination to inexplicable heights.
    Normally/"ineffable' is the word that is used to express our inability to express an emotion in words.
    The first rain smell on earth is known as 'petrichor'- an expression derived from petro meaning 'stone' and chor refers to the oozing liquid with a strange smell.
    Even the great scholars use only 10% of the words in English dictionary.
    There are so many situations for which we don't have appropriate expressions.
    For example you have a funny feeling while taking very cold and very hot things while we have tooth problems. In Tamil we have an appropriate word as " pal koochcham' but the word'sensitivity' in English does not properly explain the feeling.
    We don't have proper words to describe the sense of 'itching' and its magnitude.
    The extent of labour pains, the happiness of seeing one's own baby, the hearing of shocking news about the death of the nearest,the feeling of meeting a person after a long gap,The exact sense of pride on seeing the achievements of our children,The silence that is experienced by two people when they perfectly understand each other, yet unable to convey anything, the bristling sense experienced on seeing a miracle-these are a few examples from many in our life, which can only be felt and not narrated.

    Jayasala 42
     
    jayasala42, Jun 7, 2014
    jayasala42, Jun 7, 2014
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  7. Jun 8, 2014 #7
    shyamala1234

    shyamala1234 Platinum IL'ite

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    Dear rgs,

    Language and words are inadequate to express many things, feelings, expressions. It is not our fault....language has its limitations. Many feelings are above words. When a son or daughter comes home after a long time mother/father hugs him/her. How does one express those feelings? Words are shallow. Many instances...both sad and happy there are now words. Even if we say something it is inadequate.

    Syamala
     
    shyamala1234, Jun 8, 2014
    shyamala1234, Jun 8, 2014
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  8. Jun 8, 2014 #8
    Kamalji

    Kamalji IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear RGS,

    i have pndered over thios for a long time. i may be wrong RGS, what i state is my personal opinion. At times i know nothign, i am amazed that being in this garment trade for over 40 years, i know everything, and at times some things come up which make me feel i know nothing.

    And i feel, we know many things that te other person does not know, so we are like a teacher imparting what we know which can be of use to him/her, and at times, we learn so we aer like a student.

    At whatever age we are, we are two in one, teacher and student, and we must share our knowledge to others, even for free, as a teacher, and like a sponge , learn from others, for free if possible, or pay, to learn a few things that we dont know and that which will be useful tools in our life later on, like investments, for example, or behavior, and things like that.

    i may be wrong my dear friend, plse excuse me. lovely blog set me thinking.

    Regards

    kamal
     
    Kamalji, Jun 8, 2014
    Kamalji, Jun 8, 2014
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  9. Jun 8, 2014 #9
    Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear RGS
    I know you know nothing and that's what gives you the charming aura of a child in perpetual wonderment. It is a well-known fact that the people who pretend to know everything can never be close to people. But I also know that your knowing nothing arises out of your inability to express your feelings about several incidents that keep happening in our lives. Jayasala Madam has given a nice list of such things which will get most of us tongue-tied!

    Let me tell you something. I wonder if you have seen the Oscar Winning movie Rain Man starring Dustin Hoffman. He comes as an autistic Raymond Babbitt who
    has an exceptional flair for numbers. He can memorise several pages of a telephone directory by looking at it once. Assuming that we have an exceptional flair for words like him and memorise an entire dictionary, there will still be events in our life which may defy all those words that nestle in our brain. Yes. That puts all of us in the 'I know nothing' category!

    Did not Kambar say, 'Kandavar vindilar, vindavar kandilar'? Many experiences of life come under this category and we are all blessed who belong to 'I know nothing' group!
    Sri
     
    Cheeniya, Jun 8, 2014
    Cheeniya, Jun 8, 2014
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  10. Jun 8, 2014 #10
    rgsrinivasan

    rgsrinivasan IL Hall of Fame

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    Thanks very much for a lovely feedback Jayasala Madam.I learnt a new word from you today. Besides, we normally use similes that we already know, to explain things that we try to. Being limited to knowing a bit of just 2 languages, tamil and english, I often suffer speaking to security personnel at work, and we often smile at each other and go. But then, we do have a glimpse of some rare things in life and remember them for a long time. Your feedback makes me to ponder again. Thanks. -rgs
     
    rgsrinivasan, Jun 8, 2014
    rgsrinivasan, Jun 8, 2014
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