Uncomfortable silence and the human condition
Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:03 am
"It was so cold last night! It's meant to reach just 12 degrees today."
"Terry stained his pants at work, so he bought some new jeans yesterday."
These are "sharing" types of communication. They are not questions or commands, and neither are they generally useful or beneficial knowlegde or ideas, or attempts at propogating certain viewpoints, but rather they are sharing of experience, a desire for sympathy and understanding, a desire to share ones internal or external experiences, thoughts or situations. There is an assumption that these open-ended satements will elicit a response from those within earshot, and someone who does not respond to such statements is likely to be seen as odd, mute or even dangerous.
There is a certain desperation I think I can detect in some of this type of communication. It is not unusual for people to "share" things about even the most mundane and banal of things for hours at a time. It is not unusual for people to do this simply because otherwise there would be silence. In silence, the desperation, the unease of life, is felt more intensely, as the mind is less distracted by this chatter or gossip. Sharing this desperate, unseasy silence with another person seems harder than having it alone, maybe because one suspects that the other person is also reflecting on the basic "human condition."
It becomes like a self-conscious feedback loop: "I'm thinking about the human condition, he is also thinking about the human condition, likewise he knows I am thinking this and he knows that I know that he is thinking about this."
Talking about past events is often the predominant part of gossip. It may be that talking about the past is an attempt to avert ones mind from the present, the present being too obviously devoid of fullfillment, excitement and interest. Also the past covers a large length of time, so it is possible to pick out short highlights, which may further distract the mind from truth that the average moment of the present is mediocre.
So it seems that a lot of banal and mundane gossip/chatter/jokes/frivolity etc may actually be a cover, an attempt to suppress reflecting on the truth: the shared mediocrity of their mundane lives, the shared desperation of humans.
(I know silence can be shared without this unease. I am also not suggesting that all sharing communication can be tracked solely back to unease about the human condition.)
--
When I was a kid at primary school, every day I would come home from school, and my mother would ask me the same question: "What did you do today at school?" My response was always the same: "Not much." and that was all I said(even though my day had been full of exciting, fun and fulfilling activity).
Sometime, during the first year of high school, I began answering her question of "What did you do today at school?" with longer descriptions of the things I had done, instead of the usual "Not much."
The first time I gave a longer description, I knew it was an important change that I was making, I knew it had weight and importance, I'm not sure I knew exactly why at the time. To most it would have been seen as nothing but a simple conversation about the day. I still remember now. My younger brother was sitting in the kitchen with me and Mum and he heard me describe some of the things I had done at school. I remember feeling shameful, mainly because he witnessed it(and he was still living the life that I was losing, and maybe these actions showed I had finally given in and finally lost it), and I thought I was lowering myself and my life: it was indicative of me dropping to a new low, a new depression in life, a new sadness and desperation.
Life was getting shit, but I was expected to live a shit life, all kids were set up to go through this: everyone, all the structures of society and culture were set up so that this was meant to be my path, my destiny. The time had come for maturation: I had to do things I didn't like, to "make a living", "stop fooling around", "act your age" and to do this I had to live a lie. To try to make up for this shitty life I would begin to try to get some pleasure back out of my life by vicariously retelling it, sharing my shitty life with others.
That was what I was doing: I was trying to get an emotional reward and some sympathetic understanding of another person who had obviously also been living a life of quiet depression and desperation.
----------------------
I am not resolved to think that this human condition cannot be overcome. This is why I am still a boy, this is why despite my age I do not consider myself a man: I have not given in to the desperation and the chatter and gossip, I still believe that my authentic self, my dreams, my ultimate fulfillment of what and who I am is possible, somehow, sometime.......
I have plans.
"Terry stained his pants at work, so he bought some new jeans yesterday."
These are "sharing" types of communication. They are not questions or commands, and neither are they generally useful or beneficial knowlegde or ideas, or attempts at propogating certain viewpoints, but rather they are sharing of experience, a desire for sympathy and understanding, a desire to share ones internal or external experiences, thoughts or situations. There is an assumption that these open-ended satements will elicit a response from those within earshot, and someone who does not respond to such statements is likely to be seen as odd, mute or even dangerous.
There is a certain desperation I think I can detect in some of this type of communication. It is not unusual for people to "share" things about even the most mundane and banal of things for hours at a time. It is not unusual for people to do this simply because otherwise there would be silence. In silence, the desperation, the unease of life, is felt more intensely, as the mind is less distracted by this chatter or gossip. Sharing this desperate, unseasy silence with another person seems harder than having it alone, maybe because one suspects that the other person is also reflecting on the basic "human condition."
It becomes like a self-conscious feedback loop: "I'm thinking about the human condition, he is also thinking about the human condition, likewise he knows I am thinking this and he knows that I know that he is thinking about this."
Talking about past events is often the predominant part of gossip. It may be that talking about the past is an attempt to avert ones mind from the present, the present being too obviously devoid of fullfillment, excitement and interest. Also the past covers a large length of time, so it is possible to pick out short highlights, which may further distract the mind from truth that the average moment of the present is mediocre.
So it seems that a lot of banal and mundane gossip/chatter/jokes/frivolity etc may actually be a cover, an attempt to suppress reflecting on the truth: the shared mediocrity of their mundane lives, the shared desperation of humans.
(I know silence can be shared without this unease. I am also not suggesting that all sharing communication can be tracked solely back to unease about the human condition.)
--
When I was a kid at primary school, every day I would come home from school, and my mother would ask me the same question: "What did you do today at school?" My response was always the same: "Not much." and that was all I said(even though my day had been full of exciting, fun and fulfilling activity).
Sometime, during the first year of high school, I began answering her question of "What did you do today at school?" with longer descriptions of the things I had done, instead of the usual "Not much."
The first time I gave a longer description, I knew it was an important change that I was making, I knew it had weight and importance, I'm not sure I knew exactly why at the time. To most it would have been seen as nothing but a simple conversation about the day. I still remember now. My younger brother was sitting in the kitchen with me and Mum and he heard me describe some of the things I had done at school. I remember feeling shameful, mainly because he witnessed it(and he was still living the life that I was losing, and maybe these actions showed I had finally given in and finally lost it), and I thought I was lowering myself and my life: it was indicative of me dropping to a new low, a new depression in life, a new sadness and desperation.
Life was getting shit, but I was expected to live a shit life, all kids were set up to go through this: everyone, all the structures of society and culture were set up so that this was meant to be my path, my destiny. The time had come for maturation: I had to do things I didn't like, to "make a living", "stop fooling around", "act your age" and to do this I had to live a lie. To try to make up for this shitty life I would begin to try to get some pleasure back out of my life by vicariously retelling it, sharing my shitty life with others.
That was what I was doing: I was trying to get an emotional reward and some sympathetic understanding of another person who had obviously also been living a life of quiet depression and desperation.
----------------------
I am not resolved to think that this human condition cannot be overcome. This is why I am still a boy, this is why despite my age I do not consider myself a man: I have not given in to the desperation and the chatter and gossip, I still believe that my authentic self, my dreams, my ultimate fulfillment of what and who I am is possible, somehow, sometime.......
I have plans.