What Would We Talk About

...if we didn't talk about all the shit that we are talking about.

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

I have noticed that people who regularly interact through work or social events almost always talk about how bad work is or how bad the last social event they attended was.

I can’t remember ever hearing workmates talk about how great work is or how they are going to do something interesting or how they just read a great book or how they spent an hour sitting by a tree and just listening or how they spent several hours watching beavers in the creek or absorbing the sounds of the natural world.

It’s like what we are doing now.

We’re talking about how bad Trump is.

We’re talking about how close we are to environmental destruction.

We’re talking about how expensive it is to buy groceries.

We’re talking about the horrors that are manifesting in other countries and in our own.

The curious thing is, no one is listening.

We appear to have forgotten how to listen.

I heard a story about a monk who was widely revered for his wisdom, and a king wanted to know how he had become so wise. He had the monk brought before him and he asked if the monk could explain the source of his knowledge, the monk replied, “If you are not edified by my silence, there is no hope that you will be edified by my words.”

I have become talk-sick. I leave the room when the phone rings, the specter of an hour-long talk hovers over me, and it makes me physically ill.

I write so I don’t have to talk. I have become less capable of having conversations, and I don’t miss them, mostly because there is nothing to keep me interested. There is a guy I know who calls about once a month, and he wants to talk about this horror or that horror, and I can’t do it, because everything that needs to be said about what is happening has been said.

I’ve noticed more and more writers wondering what there is to write about anymore, and I know what they are going through.

The things that are bad are getting worse, there is no justification, on any level, for the people who are in charge. AI will kill us, not because it becomes sentient but, because it will consume a vast amount of resources, killing both us and itself in the process. COVID and other pandemics will continue to get worse. The planet will get hotter, wetter, and more inhospitable in the coming years. It most likely will, regardless of how old you are, get worse in your lifetime.

So what do we write about?

We can offer helpful tips.

We can write about our neighborhood and what is happening there.

We can make our writing the text version of showing people your photo album and how things are declining.

I’m going to keep writing because I enjoy it, and it helps me stay sane, but I probably won’t read a lot about the news of the day, I will keep up with stats on COVID, because that affects me immediately, and I will keep up with extreme weather events and the impact they are having, and I will keep up with the people whose work offers me insights and knowledge.

…other than that, though, I’ll be the quiet guy in the corner just listening.

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I’m joining the beggars banquet and including this link so you can send me money if you want. You will earn a place on my wall of smiley faces with a small contribution.