The Prologue
Something interesting happened to me recently; and I have a premonition that’s how many of my future posts will start. It is a preface to the notion that everyday we interact with others, chat with friends, say hello to strangers, and overlook the fact that there is underlying meaning in even the simplest of conversations. The innate ability to interpret the indirect and non-communicated is a developed life skill that I believe everyone possesses at different levels whether or not they recognize it.
There are two key terms in the aforementioned sentence; the first is skill and the second is recognition. Though both are respectively important and powerful to healthy conversation, when used well together in social situations they are a force – a force that can be controlled and focused for the benefit of a higher standard of life. Allow me to demonstrate with an always useful and appropriate Venn-diagram:
Yes, I made this in MS-Paint. Rumor has it that blue and yellow make green.
As with any skill, social skill is something that can be learned, refined, and improved with practice. However, unlike many gained skills, practice will never make perfect in this scenario because we will never be able to control the variability of other people’s actions and words. We can only interpret common social norms with broad but relatively accurate generalities. But once again, let me reiterate that the end goal here is not to be perfect at social interaction; it’s just to be sweet as hell… at life.
On the other side of the spectrum – in order to get better at anything, we must also be able to recognize what it is that needs to get better. I believe in order to improve our overall social abilities, we must be extraordinarily observant. Observant of others, and more importantly, observant of ourselves. In the wise words of Yogi Berra circa 1950s:
Thanks for that Yogi, that’s deep man.
Personally, I think it’s worth the time to take that extra second to stop whatever it is you are doing, unless it involves something phallic in nature, and really consider the dynamics of a conversation that just finished. I think about when the conversation went places that felt out of my control, or when a rise in emotion made me say something not conducive to the benefit of the overall conversation that I’d rather have kept to myself. I reflect by answering questions generated by the 5 ‘W’s guideline that many of us learned in grade-school: Who, what, where, when, and why? Who, or whom, was I talking to? What did I observe in the other party that I should have taken more significant note of? Why did the conversation go astray or die? When should I have changed topic, or stayed on topic? Where did the conversation go compared to where it should have gone? Thus far, just having these concepts floating through my subconscious is positively benefiting my relationships with others. Communication is the key to any relationship, so why not study it in greater depth if I possess the ability to?
And so my blog, a mild euphemism for my online man-diary, was created. It will be used as a medium to articulate an introspective look on everyday conversations with both friends and strangers. I completely understand that I am not particularly right about everything I will say or hypothesize in this blog. On the contrary, I also believe that I am not particularly wrong about my sentiment either. This man-diary is merely a venue for me to speak what is often unspoken, observe the often unobserved, and evidently write the often unwritten: a scientific soliloquy of the social soul so to say… and an unnecessarily verbose alliteration. I don’t think that it matters in the overall scheme of things whether you disagree or agree with the things that I’ll have to say in this blog. I do think what matters is that you speak up when you have an opinion. I’m willing to listen, so why don’t we sit down and talk about it?
-Eric
3 years ago