Conversations

In my opinion, Community is one of the best shows on TV right now. It’s a creatively-written comedy with a lot of deep sub-surface moral-of-the-story themes. For more info http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1439629/ In last week’s episode Community, Jeff had planned a Pulp Fiction-themed surprise party for Abed. Abed, however, was going through an epiphany. The resulting conversation in the episode really grabbed me:

Abed:  You know, I look back at my life and ask, "Who was that?" Why did he care about so many things that did not matter?... Who needs all of these pop culture references anyway? Movies, TV, to hell with all of it….You know what I was Jeff? I was that wallet. On the surface, a reference to a cinematic drivel, but on the inside, empathy….This is the first birthday of my new life. The wallet’s cute Jeff, but I’d like to exchange it for a better gift. I’m not leaving here until you given me my first real conversation.

(First:  The “wallet” was a gift of a replica of the wallet in Pulp Fiction. Second:  yes, I realize that I’m making a pop culture reference about a conversation that denounces pop culture references. However, back to the conversation…in the episode, the conversation changed direction for a few lines and then comes back to…)

Abed:   Listen to how we talk to each other; we’re like robots, exchanging catch phrases and references? 

Jeff:   You think pointing that out counts as a real conversation? You know how many fake people are talking about how fake the world is right now.

Abed:   OK, I’m new at this, can you start a real conversation?

Jeff:   I don’t believe there’s such a thing. Conversation was invented by humans as a way to conceal reality. We use it to sweet-talk our way around natural selection. You know who has real conversations? Ants. They talk by vomiting chemicals into each other’s mouths. They get right down to brass tacks. “Blllaaaah! Which way is the picnic? Blllaaaah!” Humans are more evolved. We lie.  

Abed:   Not all the time.

Jeff:   That’s a lie. 

Abed:   We don’t lie when we’re alone.

Jeff:   Biggest lie ever. Nine out of ten of lies happen six inches from the bathroom mirror. We do most of our lying alone.

Abed:   How is it possible to lie when you’re alone?

Jeff:   You can call a phone sex line. That’s lying to you.

Abed:   No, that’s just being honest to a stranger about being lonely. 

Jeff:   What if you’re dishonest about why you’re lonely?….

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ALSO last week, I was forwarded a New York Times Op Ed piece about the decreasing use of the phone in our society, which is linked here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/fashion/20Cultural.html?_r=1&ref=fashion I pulled out one specific quote from that. 

“For the most part, assiduous commenting on a friend’s Facebook updates and periodically e-mailing promises to “catch up by phone soon” substitute for actual conversation.”

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Finally, from my introductory post to this blog: 

The other reason for communicating and sharing thoughts is that on all levels, I firmly we are uplifted when we talk, when we share. We teach and we’re taught, we validate and become validated, we connect and become connected. If more people looked outward instead of selfishly focusing inward, a lot of the worries have in our society would not be as widespread. We all have a responsibility to each other. Our friendships, our community, our society, and I’ll extend this all the way out to the human race, rely on that responsibility in order to achieve happiness at all those levels.

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What has happened to the art of conversation? Where has it gone and why has it disappeared? I for one find it sad the way society has progressed from a involved, evolved, connected and inter-connected group of people to just about the opposite:  disconnected and uninvolved. Everything we do is done with short snippets and fragments of thoughts. Texts, Facebook comments, Tweets - all have a limit to how long they can be (160, 420, and 140 letters/spaces/characters respectively). I am just as guilty as everyone in this. These types of communication definitely have their place; I have been reunited with old friends, and have renewed acquaintances who have become new friends as well, all while being six hours from home. In short, I have been able to stay connected to home while living away from home, and I am very thankful for that.  

But I miss the art of conversation; the forming of a long connected thought, a flow of information and feelings and opinion. We are seemingly forced to break things down into these little pieces and hope that the receiver can piece together the 20 or 23 little fragments that are sent to them, one… post… at… a… time. And usually, we’re not fully concentrating on these little fragments, but instead we’re trying to multi-task.

And for the record, true multi-tasking is quite rare and limited to a small set of tasks; like walking and chewing – a case where one of those tasks can be done on auto-pilot. What we are really doing is this; when we say we’re multi-tasking, we're very quickly switching back and forth from one task to the other, so quickly that it appears we’re doing both tasks at once. But in reality, are we fully completing each task? Or is something lost in the constant start-switch-continue-switch mode of fragmentation we’re becoming used to? 

Have we become a society that favors quantity versus quality? Do we need more and more and more of everything, even if it means sacrificing the meaning behind each item?  I’m afraid that’s exactly what we have done. We have become a society based on numbers and quantity, and less on words and quality.  The computer age, which I believe is the ultimate start of the age of quantity, is purely based on numbers. All computer functions are based on the binary code, a series of combinations of the numbers 0 and 1. And no, I’m not bashing the good advances in life that the computer age has brought us. But what about context?

And where we’re headed, I’m afraid, in all this increased focus on quantity, and the resulting decreased focus on quality, is down a road paved with apathy.  If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, where is the road paved with a lack of intention headed to? Or are we not concerned?

Merriman-Webster definition of APATHY:  1: lack of feeling or emotion: impassiveness. 2: lack of interest or concern: indifference.

I will have several posts that will delve deeper into the topics of quantity vs. quality, apathy, and the further disconnection of society, as these themes I truly believe permeate many topics that affect us all. For example, in my jury duty post on March 13^th, I didn’t really go into my opinion of how apathy potentially could impact the outcome of that potential case, and by extension, our entire justice system, but it was there. Most of us would avoid the experience of jury duty if we could, but since we can’t, we hope to get through it as fast as possible without being selected. Why is that? Have we forgotten that there is a supposedly innocent-until-guilty human being there, being judged? Are we all focused on the huge quantity of things we need to do, things we think we need to do, and things we’d rather do? And the judge did say something that has stuck with me ever since; he said, “if you were in that chair, wouldn’t you want 12 people who were going to be fair?” Is being apathetic to the whole process, and focusing on your own quantity, really fair?

One of the reasons why blogging has resonated with me is that I feel I am able to attempt quality with these posts, and to hold a conversation with whomever is reading. 

Merriam-Webster Definition of CONVERSATION:  2a:  (1): oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas (2): an instance of such exchange: talk

OK, maybe this isn’t a true conversation…but I’ll settle for close…for now…