Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the art of conversation, or the lack there of. The Victorians would sit in the Parlor. In the fifties, they would take their coffee in the sitting room and in the eighties, the coffee house. Today conversation is not an art, but more of an extinct activity like kick the can or red rover.
Yesterday I had a wonderful morning with my friend Donna. Donna is an extremely active senior and I use the term senior loosely because she does not act, look, or personify in any way what our society would have us think a senior any age over seventy years old should act like. We went to a movie and spent the rest of the morning laughing, eating and talking. We miss so much in each other when we don’t have that part of communication. The part when there is no pressure, no time constraints, just talking, listening, and enjoying the company of other people around you.
Unfortunately the art of conversation is easily diffused and can quickly be replaced with texting, email, facebook, and a list a mile long of other ways to communicate with one another. This amazes me because we want to connect with one another. That’s why we’re so addicted to reality television, tabloid magazines, and just knowing other people’s business. We are a pack, a herd, a gaggle and we need that human connection more than ever.
I find myself getting into more conversations lately than I have in the last ten years. I know it makes me better. Not just socially but emotionally because I was there for another person, and listened to their story and they’re listening to mine. It’s like free therapy but more intimate. Each one of our stories are extremely important because that is what makes us alive. We need to listen and be heard because that is how we relate to one another.
I acknowledge the relevance of the media, and of new technologically based social networks, but we still need that lean in, the smile back, the “oh my god, really?”, and the laughter. I would challenge everyone to at least once a day, ask someone how they’re doing and ask for the real answer and then listen. What would that do for the both of you? Maybe ask someone what they were listening to on the way to work that morning. How would that small conversation evolve and change your lives? I guess the challenge is even more simple than that, just push someone a little to talk and that will produce conversation. Just know that we have the time to do it. Regardless of what our daily lives say, time doesn’t cost money and time will only go away when we do.
Yesterday I had a wonderful morning with my friend Donna. Donna is an extremely active senior and I use the term senior loosely because she does not act, look, or personify in any way what our society would have us think a senior any age over seventy years old should act like. We went to a movie and spent the rest of the morning laughing, eating and talking. We miss so much in each other when we don’t have that part of communication. The part when there is no pressure, no time constraints, just talking, listening, and enjoying the company of other people around you.
Unfortunately the art of conversation is easily diffused and can quickly be replaced with texting, email, facebook, and a list a mile long of other ways to communicate with one another. This amazes me because we want to connect with one another. That’s why we’re so addicted to reality television, tabloid magazines, and just knowing other people’s business. We are a pack, a herd, a gaggle and we need that human connection more than ever.
I find myself getting into more conversations lately than I have in the last ten years. I know it makes me better. Not just socially but emotionally because I was there for another person, and listened to their story and they’re listening to mine. It’s like free therapy but more intimate. Each one of our stories are extremely important because that is what makes us alive. We need to listen and be heard because that is how we relate to one another.
I acknowledge the relevance of the media, and of new technologically based social networks, but we still need that lean in, the smile back, the “oh my god, really?”, and the laughter. I would challenge everyone to at least once a day, ask someone how they’re doing and ask for the real answer and then listen. What would that do for the both of you? Maybe ask someone what they were listening to on the way to work that morning. How would that small conversation evolve and change your lives? I guess the challenge is even more simple than that, just push someone a little to talk and that will produce conversation. Just know that we have the time to do it. Regardless of what our daily lives say, time doesn’t cost money and time will only go away when we do.
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