Taking a Stab at Communication

Welcome to my blog! Yes, that's right; I have, after much deliberation and urging created a blog - read at your own risk. At some point in the future, it will be a collection of the plethara of crazy things that happen to me, my opinions about society, and whatever random thoughts I have that I feel  like you should know. But for the time being, this is the one and only post. And the topic of this one and only post is the item that made me finally go ahead and do this blog thing: communication.

People have never been more connected to each other ever before in history. If ever we want to get in touch with someone, we can just shoot them a text, a facebook message, an email. We feel like we have a relationship with someone if we comment on their "pin", post a video to their wall, "like" their status. 20 years ago (probably less a whole lot less), the past two sentences wouldn't have made any sense to anyone. And yet, people have never lacked communication skills as much as they do right now either. But is this a problem? "Now Maggie, it's not as if the world is going to go backwards and move away from technology. What, exactly, do you want anyone to do about this?" Hmm, hold that thought for a moment.

One of my summer (bleh) classes right is a communications class (probably why communication is at the front of my mind right now). In this communications class, my professor likes to force, er invite, everyone to get to know each other. Well, it was during one of these "get to know you" sessions that I found myself sitting with a few of my fellow classmates. After asking and answering the required questions, we each found there was little left to say, despite the fact that we were complete strangers and therefore, had plenty left to learn about each other. And so, it was left to me, who certainly doesn't pretend to be a great conversationalist, to get these other two people to talk. Geez, it was like pulling teeth from a porcupine without any novocaine. I'd ask a question, they'd give me a one sentence answer: end of conversation. That went on for an agonizing 10 minutes until my teacher decided to allow us to move on with our lives.

Now, if I hadn't been  willing to listen to an answer that was longer than one sentence, that situation would have been wonderful. And I think for far too many people, that is exactly the case. We don't want to hear everyone's life story. At most, we want everyone to listen to our own story and then move on with their day. Listening to their story would be inconvienent. And so I think we have gotten into the habit of giving the short, easy answers; the habit of reducing our entire lives into one sentence , one status, because we don't want to inconvience people. And what happens when day after day, this is how we describe our lives? Life starts to look miniscule, insignifigant. What else could it be if it can't be summed up in one sentence? "This summer, I'm going to school and I'm working." Well, that's a cheery life summary isn't it? And not only do we start to view our own lives this way, but we also see other people's lives this way. If all we ever know about them is the one sentence they tell us and that we choose to listen to, then that's as small and unimportant we may choose to view it.

But no one's life is small and insignifigant.

And now kindly back to that thought you've now been holding for several moments. No, the world isn't going to go backwards. Facebook and cellphones aren't going anywhere. And don't get me wrong; I'm not saying those things are evil (texting is like whispering; how can you not enjoy it?). But I'm already a fairly good listener. I'm perfectly happy to listening to your life story. But if you ask for mine verbally, I'll probably give you the one sentence. Not because I've reached the point of seeing my life as insignifigant, but because I've formed a habit. And I'm tired of it. So I am choosing to communicate. You don't have to"listen", but I think we need to break our generation and those after us of this habit of non-communication.

So welcome to my blog! If this is the only post you choose to read, so be it. But you may miss all the shenanigans I get myself into, such as stealing mulch and sneaking out of the "employee exit only" at the Library of Congress (ya'll thought I was such a rule-follower, didn't you?). Those are stories will be for another day. Until then....