Wordless Conversation

Photo taken by the author

While l was out walking, one evening, l made eye contact with some of the people that l encountered, as people normally do.

When l got back home, l had a realisation: up until that moment, l thought of interaction only as an exchange of words, spoken or written.

[Side note: Prolific online writer Tim Denning, described walking, rather interestingly, as “creative meditation” for the mind, in his informative article ‘Eight Millionaire Habits That Changed My Life’. Maria Popova, has also written about the creative benefits of walking (‘Walking as Creative Fuel: A Splendid 1913 Celebration of How Solitary Walks Enliven “The Country of the Mind”’; ‘The Spirit of Sauntering: Thoreau on the Art of Walking and the Perils of a Sedentary Lifestyle’), in her rich, quirky and mind-broadening newsletter ‘The Marginalian’ (formerly ‘Brain Pickings’). Many, throughout history, have praised walking, for its positive effects on the creative mind.]

But simply looking into another’s eyes, and they, into yours — that’s interaction too; that’s a form of exchange. That is hardly revolutionary, but l, curiously, had never thought of it that way, at least not that l can recall.

Although l didn’t vocalise my thoughts to the people l encountered on my walk, nor they to me, we ‘conversed’. We conversed wordlessly, through our eyes.

I’d be hard-pressed to tell you what it is they communicated to me, or l, to them, but we interacted.

Interestingly, when people’s eyes meet, the parties involved are usually quick to look away. Why? Perhaps it’s because the meeting of eyes is an exceedingly intimate form of exchange, and most of us fear intimacy, it seems.

Why do we fear intimacy so? Perhaps it’s the illusory safety of ‘not being seen’ versus the equally illusory danger of ‘being seen’. But l digress.

The next time your eyes meet with someone else’s, without either of you saying a word, know that you’re interacting, exchanging, even if you can’t quite put your finger on what it is you’ve exchanged, and even if it’s only for a split second.