Disobedience

by Naomi Alderman

How often are we hurt by those who declare that they are “only speaking the truth”? Not all true thoughts must be spoken.

“Ronit, what makes you think that you can solve this situation? What makes that your responsibility?” And on one level she’s right. You can’t solve anyone else’s life for them. But then, if you see someone struggling with a heavy load, isn’t it forbidden to walk on without helping them?

And she ran into the little bathroom just off the hall. She stayed there for forty-eight minutes. I timed it.

We did not go out of each other’s lives in a blaze of anger. We simply fell out of the habit of speaking. We lost our common language and so lost everything. There was nothing for us to say.

If He had prized only the silence of his creations, He would never have given a part of it the gift of speech. Our words are powerful. Our words are real. This does not mean, however, that we should remain silent forever. Rather, we must measure our words. We must be sure that we use them, like the Almighty, to create and not to destroy.

All things, when measured in spans of years, seem simple. But human lives do not occur in years but slowly, day by day. A year may be easy, but its days are hard indeed.

Practice, of course, means a lot of different things. Probably something different to everyone. You can practice every day, or just once in a while. But if you don’t ever practice, you’ll never know what it could have meant to you. You’ll never know who you might have been. If you don’t practice, you’ll probably even feel awkward claiming that identity: if it has no function in your life, what’s the point of saying it? It’s still there, of course. It’ll never go away. But if you don’t practice, it can never change your life.