Are you ever in a conversation and completely run out of anything to say. I called up an old friend the other day. I have not seen him in thirty years. We have talked on the phone a few time over the years and I have felt I needed to reconnect with him and re-establish the good if not shallow friendship we had.
So I called him at his place of employment and said up front, "If you are busy I understand, this may be an extremely short conversation anyway." After the hey how is it going I said, "I have been thinking about who I want to say hello to for this holiday season and your name was the first to come to my mind." He replied, "That's great, I am glad you did." I said to him, "If you or I run out of things to say we can just say, I think were done here" and let it go at that. He laughed and explained that he does feel a little awkward talking to someone he hardly knows. I reminded him of some of the awkward situations we shared and he seemed to relax.
I was at a meeting the other day and this person came up with an idea for information sharing and wanted to try it at this meeting. She explained the rules of engagement and said, "Now, take five minutes to gather your thoughts and them we will use this technique and share our ideas". Well, the five minutes seemed like a week. "ok" she said, "lets start". I thought I knew silence and what it sounded like. It was so quiet I heard the pig valve clicking in the old guy sitting at the end of the table. I heard the nose whistler in the next room. I even heard the ocean waves crashing on the shore three miles away. The lady's technique eventually worked well but at the end of the meeting I said to her, "Michelle, your greatest achievement today is that you created the worlds first instant, completely mobile sensory deprivation chamber". Humor is lost on some people.
My dad impressed on me that if you do not have anything helpful to say, do not say anything. He knew that given my propensity to say "anything that came to mind", I should have a few tools to keep me out of trouble. I am not bothered by having nothing to say in a conversation. I know that given a few seconds or minutes I will come up with something. Look at this tripe I am writing now. I have ran out of things to say twice so far. I pause for a few seconds and off I go. There is a scene in "You've Got Mail" where Shopgirl is talking with Fox and she realizes she does not have anything nice to say to this man. She just stops and says, "Hmmp". It may have been in "When Harry Met Sally" I do not know now. Listening acuity increases during silence. The chances for making a verbal blunder are almost nil when there is no talking. You can even hear one hand clapping in silence.
The older I get, the more I want quiet. I sleep with ear plugs. I have taken sign language classes in case I lose my hearing. Henry Limpet said, I wish, I wish, I wish I was a fish and he became a fish so I am not taking any chances with my hearing. Some sounds, if not all, I can ignore for a while but it takes energy and creates stress to block sound. My family and friends are hearing impaired. The children are loud, the dogs are even loud. ( I haven't slept in 5 days!....My Cousin Vinny) The cats sound like Lions. The palm trees sound like badgers have taken over a foil factory. The louder the yelling, the louder the TV and the spiral goes up. Sound travels in a straight line. Straight into my nerve center. There is a song called Silence is Golden and if you start singing it you will never stop, ever.
So I called him at his place of employment and said up front, "If you are busy I understand, this may be an extremely short conversation anyway." After the hey how is it going I said, "I have been thinking about who I want to say hello to for this holiday season and your name was the first to come to my mind." He replied, "That's great, I am glad you did." I said to him, "If you or I run out of things to say we can just say, I think were done here" and let it go at that. He laughed and explained that he does feel a little awkward talking to someone he hardly knows. I reminded him of some of the awkward situations we shared and he seemed to relax.
I was at a meeting the other day and this person came up with an idea for information sharing and wanted to try it at this meeting. She explained the rules of engagement and said, "Now, take five minutes to gather your thoughts and them we will use this technique and share our ideas". Well, the five minutes seemed like a week. "ok" she said, "lets start". I thought I knew silence and what it sounded like. It was so quiet I heard the pig valve clicking in the old guy sitting at the end of the table. I heard the nose whistler in the next room. I even heard the ocean waves crashing on the shore three miles away. The lady's technique eventually worked well but at the end of the meeting I said to her, "Michelle, your greatest achievement today is that you created the worlds first instant, completely mobile sensory deprivation chamber". Humor is lost on some people.
My dad impressed on me that if you do not have anything helpful to say, do not say anything. He knew that given my propensity to say "anything that came to mind", I should have a few tools to keep me out of trouble. I am not bothered by having nothing to say in a conversation. I know that given a few seconds or minutes I will come up with something. Look at this tripe I am writing now. I have ran out of things to say twice so far. I pause for a few seconds and off I go. There is a scene in "You've Got Mail" where Shopgirl is talking with Fox and she realizes she does not have anything nice to say to this man. She just stops and says, "Hmmp". It may have been in "When Harry Met Sally" I do not know now. Listening acuity increases during silence. The chances for making a verbal blunder are almost nil when there is no talking. You can even hear one hand clapping in silence.
The older I get, the more I want quiet. I sleep with ear plugs. I have taken sign language classes in case I lose my hearing. Henry Limpet said, I wish, I wish, I wish I was a fish and he became a fish so I am not taking any chances with my hearing. Some sounds, if not all, I can ignore for a while but it takes energy and creates stress to block sound. My family and friends are hearing impaired. The children are loud, the dogs are even loud. ( I haven't slept in 5 days!....My Cousin Vinny) The cats sound like Lions. The palm trees sound like badgers have taken over a foil factory. The louder the yelling, the louder the TV and the spiral goes up. Sound travels in a straight line. Straight into my nerve center. There is a song called Silence is Golden and if you start singing it you will never stop, ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment