Kindly Unspoken

Brad Manning's essay, "Arm Wrestling with My Father" emphasizes a another form of communication other than explicit words that can bond a family together, implicit actions. The narrator recognizes at a young age that his father doesn't bond with him through words but actions, but as a young kid he did not understand that his father was trying to communicate. This essay reminded me of a song I heard a while ago called Kindly Unspoken by Kate Voegele who sings about a lover that showed his feelings through silence rather than words. This apparently baffled her at first, but now she can understand this form of communication, "Its lucky I'm clever, if I didn't know better Id only believe that which I heard." Eventually the song shows how words are more likely to deceive while actions cannot. While this was a negative revelation it turns out to be a positive one for Manning. He figured out that his father was just trying to show him love, through competition, in his own special way. The relationship between Manning and his father embodies the saying, "Silence speaks louder than words."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkqrZ4zoNes