talk to me

This morning I saw a commercial promoting Sunday sports. I guess it’s the Superbowl or something… right? Yeah, I don’t know. But that’s not my point. Obviously, it’s a big day for gathering and hanging out with friends. So this commercial made that point and said when all your friends are gathered and food is out and it’s too early… what are you going to do? Talk? No, the commercial said. Watch basketball.

Since when has talking become an activity we need to avoid? 

All right. It’s just a commercial. People still talk to one another. They talk on the phone all the bloody time. In the grocery store. While driving their cars. In the public bathroom. And people talk, talk, talk on television. So much punditry and opinions and mockery. We chew the cud over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at parties. We gossip over the latest scandal. We complain about the weather. We complain about the sports teams. We complain about the president. We lament our woes. We champion our victories. We talk.

But… is it… is it a conversation?

I feel like there is a lot of talking AT people. Not with them. We have so many communication devices to disperse our voices and opinions and observations into the stratosphere… but there is no necessity to absorb the other noise they pass along the way. Some of it is just noise. But some of it… is… well, I wish there was more talking to discuss and argue and try to see the other point – even for just a few fleeting seconds.

You know, maybe… maybe I live my life glued to a computer too much. Maybe I was in the vacuum of rehearsing fictitious dialogue too long. Maybe my life is an exception. Maybe people in this world really do talk enough that it requires avoiding it when friends come over.

And yeah, okay, I’m just as guilty – if not more so – of NOT wanting to talk to people. I don’t like my brain to be bored. I don’t… well, I do end up losing interest when the subject lands on something, like, say, the Superbowl. But if my conversation partner can divulge how it enriches his life or what it is about the game that makes her happy or vexed, well… I’ll be interested enough to tune in for a few moments. And you know, maybe, a conversation like that could even convince me that my resistance to sports is silly.

It is something that I feel is missing from my life. I have created events and opportunities to fill this void. To turn off the television. To speak face to face and not over some invisible wave between two points. To engage. To stop my voice for a few seconds and hear the other brilliant minds in my circle. Because, to me, that is infinitely more valuable than most things in this world. It is what helps me understand people… and, really, in the larger purpose… life.