Talking Without Speaking

So I was re-watching bits from the Disney movie Wall*E the other day and again being amazed at how the characters expressed themselves so wonderfully without actually speaking many words.

This got me thinking about how, in many ways, human beings are pretty good at getting our point across without saying a single word... and yet we do spend so much time speaking.

In dance we can express an entire story with only music and physical movement..



In the days before movies with music actors got their point across with facial expressions and motion...



And then there's what was done with Wall*E -- creating a character with a whole sympathetic personality using only expressions grafted onto a non-human face and a few noises.



And all this ties in to how often we see people talking one thing but acting something else. "Do as I say, not as I do." "Actions speak louder than words." Maybe it's time we spent a little less time listening to people's words and more time looking at their actions, at the language their body speaks, at the 'words' in their expressions and the sentences in their eyes.