Have you ever seen the animated show Phineas and Ferb? It’s about two brothers who love inventing and can’t stand lazing around, so they fill their summers with their crazy ideas- doing things they are “a little young” to be doing, and driving their sister insane.
One of the brothers, Ferb, says almost nothing every episode. His character speaks only at the end of the show, and even then, not every time. The things Ferb says can be at times, poignant or proverbial and at others, funny and juvenile. But no matter what he says, it’s always exciting to hear him speak. And I wondered, why is that?
If someone is generally silent, it’s almost like a big event to hear them speak. In these cases profundity is often expected unconsciously. However, even though the expectations are often higher, in general when they speak, what they says gets valued more than what someone who talks often says. If Ferb and his brother Phineas were to say the same thing, we would perhaps, value Ferb’s comment as “genius” and Phineas’s as “whatever.” We appreciate what Ferb says, more, because it’s like a rarity, whereas when Phineas talks, we write it off as more of the same old babble.
Coming from someone who can’t seem to stop talking, I think there might be something to be said for taking a page out of Ferb’s book. Listening more and talking less certainly seem to have their rewards.