It’s really hard to talk. But it’s definitely harder to listen. It’s already difficult to communicate with someone who doesn’t understand the language you speak. However, with the resources that we can use nowadays, we can just look for the translation of that foreign language. But then, how hard is it to communicate with someone who definitely speaks the same language that you do yet he still can’t understand what you are saying? No matter how hard you try to explain, he still doesn’t understand and what’s more frustrating is that you have no idea how you could make him understand because there is no translation for the “language” that he uses? Having very good listening skills is gift. The problem is, not all people are given this kind of gift. Being able to “listen” and understand the verbal and non-verbal cues of a person is something that not all people can do. One of those people who just can’t is Charlie Babbit (Tom Cruise).
The movie The Rain Man (1988) showed the reality about autism. Charlie Babbit was a typical 1980’s yuppie who didn’t really know the meaning of listening. He always wanted people to listen to him yet he never listened to the people around him. Instead, he would even talk them down and most of the time, he would even end up yelling at them as if his being so domineering was not yet enough to offend. When his father died, he was left with the vintage car that he had always wanted to have and some rosebushes while the rest of his father’s assets (amounting up to $3, 000, 000) were left to an unknown beneficiary. He then went to find out who that beneficiary was and to his surprise, it was his autistic brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), who he didn’t even know existed. Having so much anger for his father’s decision (and his father himself as well), and thinking that he deserved the same inheritance that Raymond received, Charlie decided to kidnap his brother from the institution where he has been taken care of since their mother died when Charlie was two years old.
During the times when the brothers were together, Charlie experienced, for the first time, how it was to be ignored and to be taken for granted when talking. And of course, for once, he learned how to listen. For the first time, he learned to “accept another human being for what he is, and work ‘with’ his bewildering methods of communication rather than against them.”
So later on, Charlie gave no more importance to the money that he wanted to have. He learned to love and care for Raymond already.
Somehow, Charlie learned how to communicate with his brother though they had very different orientations. Take for example their concept of “schedule.” Charlie grew up with “normal” people like him who understand that it’s okay to deviate from one’s routine if necessary while Raymond has been living his entire life with his 11 PM-sleeping time, Tuesday-is-Pancake day, “Jeopardy” watching habit, and so on. At first, Charlie would always have things on his way—he could cancel anything if he wanted to, he could reverse whatever it was that he already said, he could just ignore whatever the people around him tell him and just go on with his own will. However, when he started spending an entire day with Raymond, he also started cancelling flights to Los Angeles when he really needed to be there for his business just because Raymond wouldn’t want to get on the plane and started driving for almost three days from Ohio to LA. He started to understand.
Just like in real life, we tend to have miscommunication with people around us who have different ways of seeing things. This usually happens when the person we are talking to was raised on a different culture from ours. Most of the time, it’s just human nature that we feel more superior than the others and that what we think or what we practice is what’s right.
I had a very personal experience about this one. Whenever I and my boyfriend were in a fight because of his fault, it would always last for so long just because he would not say “sorry.” As I grew up in my family, we were taught of the importance of apologizing even for just a very minor wrongdoing. My father would always say, “Always apologize whenever you do something wrong because it is not good that someone hates you for something. It’s always better to be in good terms with everybody.” On the other hand, my boyfriend didn’t exactly know how important apologizing was for me. So at first, when we didn’t know each other that much yet, I would always wait for him to approach me and apologize but I would just wait for nothing. I started wondering then if he really loved me or of he really cared for me. Until we had a very huge fight that I couldn’t bear the pain anymore and I exploded out with so much anger about that attitude of his. That’s when I found out that he was not used to apologizing because he was never really brought up the way that I was. His concept of apologizing was when he would be quiet and wait for me to talk to him first. That was not a very usual way, was it? So since we found out about that difference between us, we started adjusting. As a matter of fact, we are now on our 29th month.
Sometimes we just need to take time and be considerate of other people. Sometimes we have to give less attention or importance to out own beliefs and norms and try to think outside the box. Most of the time we are so insensitive that we only think of our own beliefs to be the only righteous ones when in fact, ours are also wrong for other people who live in a very different setting from where we live in.
It is already difficult to communicate with someone who can speak but has a different perception with yours. Then it is much more difficult to communicate with people who have problems with speaking, or those who can’t even speak. Most of the time, we tend to misinterpret their actions and the same thing happens to them. Because they don’t understand fully the manner of how we communicate, they also misinterpret us. We can’t blame them of course. It wasn’t their fault anyway to be born or to grow up that way.
Actually, I think that we should be thankful for these kinds of people. Some people might see them as burden or useless but if we look closely, we can see that they contribute huge things to the people they live with. Their family, relatives, caregivers, and friends learn from them the value of understanding, sensitivity, and patience. It’s definitely not easy to take care of someone who has a condition like Raymond but everyone changes their attitude whenever they come to be with people like Raymond. Take Charlie for instance who changed so much since he had his brother in custody.
Communicating with people who have speech defects needs an extra dose of patience and understanding. One has to be very sensitive and considerate in order to know what that person really wants to convey. “Normal” people like us need to understand that for their kind, we are “not normal.”
xoxo
The movie The Rain Man (1988) showed the reality about autism. Charlie Babbit was a typical 1980’s yuppie who didn’t really know the meaning of listening. He always wanted people to listen to him yet he never listened to the people around him. Instead, he would even talk them down and most of the time, he would even end up yelling at them as if his being so domineering was not yet enough to offend. When his father died, he was left with the vintage car that he had always wanted to have and some rosebushes while the rest of his father’s assets (amounting up to $3, 000, 000) were left to an unknown beneficiary. He then went to find out who that beneficiary was and to his surprise, it was his autistic brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), who he didn’t even know existed. Having so much anger for his father’s decision (and his father himself as well), and thinking that he deserved the same inheritance that Raymond received, Charlie decided to kidnap his brother from the institution where he has been taken care of since their mother died when Charlie was two years old.
During the times when the brothers were together, Charlie experienced, for the first time, how it was to be ignored and to be taken for granted when talking. And of course, for once, he learned how to listen. For the first time, he learned to “accept another human being for what he is, and work ‘with’ his bewildering methods of communication rather than against them.”
So later on, Charlie gave no more importance to the money that he wanted to have. He learned to love and care for Raymond already.
Somehow, Charlie learned how to communicate with his brother though they had very different orientations. Take for example their concept of “schedule.” Charlie grew up with “normal” people like him who understand that it’s okay to deviate from one’s routine if necessary while Raymond has been living his entire life with his 11 PM-sleeping time, Tuesday-is-Pancake day, “Jeopardy” watching habit, and so on. At first, Charlie would always have things on his way—he could cancel anything if he wanted to, he could reverse whatever it was that he already said, he could just ignore whatever the people around him tell him and just go on with his own will. However, when he started spending an entire day with Raymond, he also started cancelling flights to Los Angeles when he really needed to be there for his business just because Raymond wouldn’t want to get on the plane and started driving for almost three days from Ohio to LA. He started to understand.
Just like in real life, we tend to have miscommunication with people around us who have different ways of seeing things. This usually happens when the person we are talking to was raised on a different culture from ours. Most of the time, it’s just human nature that we feel more superior than the others and that what we think or what we practice is what’s right.
I had a very personal experience about this one. Whenever I and my boyfriend were in a fight because of his fault, it would always last for so long just because he would not say “sorry.” As I grew up in my family, we were taught of the importance of apologizing even for just a very minor wrongdoing. My father would always say, “Always apologize whenever you do something wrong because it is not good that someone hates you for something. It’s always better to be in good terms with everybody.” On the other hand, my boyfriend didn’t exactly know how important apologizing was for me. So at first, when we didn’t know each other that much yet, I would always wait for him to approach me and apologize but I would just wait for nothing. I started wondering then if he really loved me or of he really cared for me. Until we had a very huge fight that I couldn’t bear the pain anymore and I exploded out with so much anger about that attitude of his. That’s when I found out that he was not used to apologizing because he was never really brought up the way that I was. His concept of apologizing was when he would be quiet and wait for me to talk to him first. That was not a very usual way, was it? So since we found out about that difference between us, we started adjusting. As a matter of fact, we are now on our 29th month.
Sometimes we just need to take time and be considerate of other people. Sometimes we have to give less attention or importance to out own beliefs and norms and try to think outside the box. Most of the time we are so insensitive that we only think of our own beliefs to be the only righteous ones when in fact, ours are also wrong for other people who live in a very different setting from where we live in.
It is already difficult to communicate with someone who can speak but has a different perception with yours. Then it is much more difficult to communicate with people who have problems with speaking, or those who can’t even speak. Most of the time, we tend to misinterpret their actions and the same thing happens to them. Because they don’t understand fully the manner of how we communicate, they also misinterpret us. We can’t blame them of course. It wasn’t their fault anyway to be born or to grow up that way.
Actually, I think that we should be thankful for these kinds of people. Some people might see them as burden or useless but if we look closely, we can see that they contribute huge things to the people they live with. Their family, relatives, caregivers, and friends learn from them the value of understanding, sensitivity, and patience. It’s definitely not easy to take care of someone who has a condition like Raymond but everyone changes their attitude whenever they come to be with people like Raymond. Take Charlie for instance who changed so much since he had his brother in custody.
Communicating with people who have speech defects needs an extra dose of patience and understanding. One has to be very sensitive and considerate in order to know what that person really wants to convey. “Normal” people like us need to understand that for their kind, we are “not normal.”
xoxo
