‘Beam me up, Scotty’
“Beam me up Scotty, there are no intelligent life forms down here.”
As a spoof of the original lines that came from Star Trek, the statement about non-existent intelligent life forms sarcastically sums up boring parties and boring people. As one grows older and presumably wiser, we “discover” that our diminished capacity for revelry and alcohol also signals our diminished tolerance for small talk and inanities. Many older and wiser people would rather sit or lie in bed watching the idiot box we call “TV” rather than stand up for hours listening to a full size — real life idiot or a herd of morons.
In much younger days, we would have dismissed such an attitude as representative of grumpy old men and women, but once you come to accept your mortality and the invisible clock counting down your limited stay on earth, the last thing you want to do is waste your time listening to someone who is a waste of space and energy or a potent argument for celibacy. The irony is that the more people try to sound and “appear” intelligent, the more stupid they look. Their second cousins in this department would be people who give you answers to questions by not giving you an answer and pretending that they are. It would have been a better world if God gave everyone the curse of Pinocchio’s nose.
Some people I know have actively chosen to become social hermits because of the absence of intelligent life forms in their social circle. Unfortunately, these social hermits have become victims of self-imposed “rules,” cordon sanitaire, and their unwillingness to share, mentor, or listen to a “different” view or perspective. Many times they are locked down by sticking within the same age group, social circle, business group, political party, even religious sects. Others are handcuffed by imagined “security risks,” living up to public expectations and worse, simply can’t be bothered! Sadly, by excluding themselves from the conversation, they have excluded themselves from life.
Yesterday while attending the Tuesday Club meeting, I had a refreshingly nice breakfast while talking with a small group of people about their day-to-day concerns at home and at work, as well as about the future. There were no “deep philosophical” ideas, not one of them ever touched on politics, and for the most part we talked about attitudes, behaviors, motives and reactions. No one was a CEO, no politicians, certainly no scholars or people with titles from some college of Divinities. In hindsight, the people I spoke with yesterday were interesting because they spoke with authority (about their lives/situation), they spoke with sincerity and concern about their future, and each person was also “listening in” with a desire to learn and perhaps pick up something useful or new.
Because the topic and contribution meant something for each person, we were respectful and concerned. Yes, we spoke about office matters, family affairs, we even talked about waist size, breast cancer and God. No one cracked a rude joke, did a survey on candidates or jumped in to assault some personality. What made it all the more enjoyable was that we were all engaged, and not doing small talk. We were in conversation and not in a debate or engaged in gossip, or expressing opinions that end with exclamation points that also end conversation streams.
Reflecting on all that, you learn that “small talk” rarely gets bigger and opinion while making you feel bigger can actually be a killer.
Why would such a “conversation” merit column space in the editorial section? because we are losing the art and the secrets to meaningful conversations. To make matters worse, our children and their children run the risk of becoming the first generation of socially distant and disconnected people, while being the first to be electronically connected through social media.
Because of the “what’s in it for me” mentality coupled with the selfish motives for networking, people have slowly reduced face to face time, and have lost interest or appreciation for the benefits of “old school” social interaction. This is ironic considering that it is only in this era that human beings and viewers have glued in to “Reality TV” and “Interactive engagements.”
Look around you and for the most part you will observe that families may go out for quality time, but almost everyone is “multi-tasking” between ipads and iphones. Watch how some husbands are so insultingly “dismissive” and disrespectful of their wife or children whenever they call him on the phone. They act like they are so irritated, in a rush, or can’t be bothered to speak to the wife or children! The sad commentary is that in most cases they don’t speak or act that way with their employees or business associates.
Observe the parties and events you attend, for the most part people extend their hand not in welcome of a new acquaintance but from the business end of networking, while holding a drink with the other. “Business people” have prioritized connecting instead of conversing.
There’s a lot of intelligent life form round and about, but it’s hard to tell unless we engage them in intelligent conversation. In order to do that we need to listen half as much as we speak. Just as we enjoy art, we can enjoy conversation.