god herself would have to come down from the heavens and give testimony before i took “testimonials” seriously.

(paraphrase of the site)”your life will improve by taking this course, because mine did” is not enough information.

second best would be a testimonial from someone i know and trust where i could see how it worked for them.

what makes this program better than others? perhaps its a better question for an email. it has made a very great impression on you, so it is worth knowing more.

maybe the website does not want to give too much information because they want to solicit participants.

I’ve never thought of writing a short story. Your suggestions are brilliant. Aphasia or not, maybe you could write that story. It is a universal theme; this is also one of the reasons why everyone can relate to the Landmark Forum because it’s about precisely this. Universal themes, universal ways of being, that all people can relate to.

Love what you say: “… we feel obligated to express in public the unexpressed.” If only there were more of it! As you say, the worst that can happen is foot in mouth and that can be cleaned up.

It was hearing a Jewish man speak that had me register to do the Landmark Forum. I had gone along to an introduction night with my friend, and this man, Jack, was leading the introduction. He was so expressive and droll and light, I loved him. He shared how he’d come to Australia from Egypt as a small boy with his parents, and how for most of his life he’d been ashamed of his parents — they made him eat “funny” things (compared to the Aust-born kids) , they looked “funny”, they worked in a factory, etc. And then he did the Forum and he got that his parents — I’ll always remember the word he used — were “giants.”

They’d moved to the other side of the world with no English and had worked so hard to provide Jack and his brother a new life and education. And after doing the Forum, he had a completely different relationship with his parents, and when his mother was dying Jack built an annexe on his house for his mother and nursed her till her death.

I acknowledge your courage in challenging yourself to interact on blogs. It really takes something.

i am trying to read where you blog about the Landmark Forum to understand what it is and why it is so important to you.

in doing so, i have already discovered sympatico! perfunctory “how are you(s)” are a personal peeve (especially in a doctors office!) i have no designs about becoming a writer. in fact i suffer with aphasia. so pardon if i make little sense at times.

the blog format is teaching me things about how people interact and its a way to force myself to use the synapses.

i rarely give unsolicited advice, but i think you will take this in the spirit it was intended – what a great short story this would make!

have you written many short stories? do you have a pair of eyes you trust to offer editorial. this has the makings of a great short story -

(here is the unsolicited, take with a shaker of salt the edits i offer)
free the characters from a specific holiday but keep the holiday reference since people are more apt to feel the solitude during such times. its at these times we compare our insides to others outsides. give us the words that “said so little” and more examples of the mannerisms that communicated “muteness”, foreshadow what they are so hungry to express, then merge your real life experience… FREE THEM. if only in their minds or perhaps by one bold uncomfortable spontaneous toast which opens the flood gates to unexpected results. this is a universal theme, there is not one of us that has not felt this uncomfortableness – i would like to read a story that makes me feel the discomfort of its topic.

a story like this might inspire someone to make the “if only” possible, it might inspire them to speak or it might speak for them.

BTW, as a jew we feel obligated to express in public the unexpressed. i have never regretted it. i really don’t see how breaking the silence is a bad idea, unless you emotionally hurt someone. the worst that happens is foot in mouth. i have been taught that it is far more likely that others are thinking similar thoughts and lack the courage to speak, therefore “we” (jews) are duty bound to speak for them… the old silence is complicity adage.

hope i made a bit of sense.

I had an interesting experience in breaking the ice at my Christmas Day lunch. I proposed a toast to what we’d like for the new year and started it off by proposing “joy,” a word that gives me a frisson every time I say it, and from somewhere round the table I heard someone give a little gasp. We then proceeded around until we got to my uncle who, rather unexpectedly, proposed “living to see 2012.” Though my uncle’s 81, he’s a very youthful and vigorous man, and I think all of us were surprised that that was on his mind. The toast petered out at that point (perhaps it was the candour, perhaps not) and I’m regretting a little that I let it lapse. Yet all of us did get a sudden access to my uncle we hadn’t had before. And now writing this I’m thinking I might phone him and get to know him better still. SGx

People talking without speaking/People hearing without listening……And no one dared/Disturb the sound of silence.

Doesn’t this describe wonderfully how we “communicate”? But we can “disturb the sound of silence” by “breaking the ice”. The ice once broken, the sound of silence once disturbed, people can now feel the courage to speak of what’s in their hearts.

On the other hand, having broken the ice, or disturbed the sound of silence, you can be made to wish you hadn’t.

There are more of them at Christmas time. A strange, and bad, time for many people.