The power of words is tremendous. Although many people say that pictures are worth more (which maybe true), we shouldn’t forget that the words that come out of our mouths carry a lot of weight. And must be chosen with thought. The smallest, most insignificant words can cause a lot of damage, depending on the circumstances. Within a single word there can be many messages, and they can have devastating effects.
“Like a beautiful flower, full of colour, but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly. The Buddha
The power of hurtful words
Words are so strong that you don’t need to use many to induce profound happiness or deep hurt in others. All you have to do is say something that validates a negative emotion or attacks the other person’s weakest points.
We all know toxic, manipulative people who are able to use words to get what they want from us, even if we don’t want them to. We’ve all said or received things full of anger, resentment and the wish to hurt.
The power of loving words
Words are not only powerful when they aim to hurt. They also serve to describe feel- ings like pleasure, kindness, love, and gratefulness.
We use some of the most beautiful words in the world to talk about things we like, such as beauty, friendship, solidarity, or kindness.
The power of deceitful words
It’s a shame that linguistic richness is often used to insult, lie, discriminate, or falsify. Sadly this is increasingly common in the way parliamentarians use language. The growth of social media which offers a place to hide for those who seek to hurt or harm has much to answer for.
Words have an enormous power. They can be a source of beauty, poetry, love, life, food for the soul, positivity… But like everything in this world, there’s a dark side that twists, oppresses, and strangles them.
Increasingly voices try to make their messages heard above the rest, elevating the tone or the gravity of their actions with language to support it. They attack others, thinking that the validity of their message gives them enough moral shelter to be prejudiced against their opponents or to remain indifferent to them.
The responsibility of exercising and enjoying the power of words lies with us. It’s up to us whether we use them to create, construct, share, and embrace, or to attack or destroy. In a dark and suffering world I think the answer is clear. We must think about the words we use.
