A Word Is Not a Sparrow

A couple of years ago I flew to Sri Lanka for a few days to learn to surf. There’s a great spot for beginners there — Weligama beach. As a tourist, I mostly got around on tuk-tuks — three-wheeled motor rickshaws with a little cabin. What surprised me was how meticulously the local drivers cared for their vehicles, unlike, say, in India. Every tuk-tuk was unique in its own way: tuned, hand-painted, as if to underline the owner’s personality and taste.

One day I was riding with a fairly elderly driver, and inside the cabin, around the dashboard — more for himself than for any passenger — he’d stuck little stickers with wise sayings.

Among them, in the largest font of all, one stood out:

“Words can be forgiven, but never forgotten.”

The moment I read it, the phrase sent a literal shiver through me.

It was as if, right there, I lived through inside myself how every time I’d hurt someone — even unintentionally — or worse, insulted them with my words, those words could stay with them forever, written into the brain’s neural network, processed by the subconscious. Realizing how irreversible that process is filled me with horror and a sense of helplessness.

I wanted, that very second, to call everyone who’d ever caught me at a bad moment — who’d unfairly felt my anger or a swing in my mood, everyone I’d said ugly things to that they didn’t deserve. To call and… apologize. And I relived, again, the hurt I’d felt myself when people said vile things to me, especially for no real reason. But that’s exactly the point: every apology had already been made, and what’s said can’t be taken back.

Besides, we’re all wired differently. I, for one, can forget all the “extra” things I blurted out within ten minutes — while another person may remember them for life, no matter how I beg forgiveness afterward.

What’s sad is that the targets of words like these are so often the people closest to us: family, partners, colleagues. As if the mere fact of their presence in our lives loosens our tongue. We devalue the ones who are always there, and we’re more careful with our words around random strangers — though common sense says it should be the other way around.

And what comes of it in the end?

One, two, three — and our bitter words begin to wear away even the closest, deepest, most intimate relationships. The “residue” builds up, layer by layer, until at some point it reaches a critical mass, where the body’s defense becomes indifference. Not conflict — because formally every apology was accepted — but a terrible, cold indifference, a filter that blocks everything, the bad and the good alike. And so, word by word, comes the end of a friendship, a closeness, a partnership.

Since then I’ve grown far more careful with every word I say, especially a negative one. As an emotional person, this doesn’t come easily to me, but those feelings on the tuk-tuk help a lot. Often it’s better to stay silent, to walk away, to hold back — rather than blurt out something both people will regret later.

On the other hand, this wisdom cuts the other way too. When we say kind, warm words of support to each other, we build up the memory of them, strengthening our bond and the depth of the relationship.

As they say: even a cat enjoys a kind word.

Here’s to saying only what’s worthy of living forever in someone else’s memory! 😎