The Lost Art of Conversation.

When I was a kid growing up in the late seventies and early eighties, I can remember that my father was always talking to someone. Whether it was in line at the grocery store, or at the OTB, he always seemed to find someone to talk to, and I noticed other people were having conversations as well, not just my father. My part in it was just to watch and smile once in a while if he patted be on the back or pulled at my ear when referring to me. Aside from that, I would just listen and learn. He always told me to keep my eyes and ears open, and my mouth shut. Old school. Moreover, for a construction worker with a ninth grade education, he was quite the orator with a wide range of conversational topics.

Now keep in mind, these were the days when you always had dimes in your pocket in case you needed to pull over somewhere and make a phone call. Cell phones, texting, and the Internet had not yet been invented, and that to me was a good thing. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not some troglodyte who scoffs at technology. Quite to the contrary, I am never far from my blackberry and I am writing this on my Mac, but they are tools not intended to replace real human contact. At leas to me. Sometimes I wonder how things will be when my son is old enough to have his own cell phone, or how the definition of how old a person should be to have one will evolve when his time finally comes.

Verbal conversation if not dead does seem to be dying. I blame out reliance on other communication devices for the malignancy of conversation as I remember it as a kid. Now I have been guilty of sending a text in lieu of a conversation because I didn’t feel like talking, but this is the exception and not the rule. One thing I love about cigars is that it is a social hobby where men can sit around and act like men. Drink, curse, and tell stories not caring how true they are. In the end, it is about fellowship and communication on a personal level. When you talk you make eye contact and whether you realize it or not, you are also conveying a myriad of non verbal cues and movements so furtive that despite not immediately noticing them, they account for some 80-85% of all communication between humans.

So, what is to come of how we communicate with each other in the future? Will we develop devices that bring texting to the next level and allow us to “thought” each other without having to do anything but direct our attention at someone else? I hope not. Try to think about the last time you had an off hand conversation with someone you didn’t know, who wasn’t behind a cash register or trying to sell you something. The last one I had was with an elderly man after I offered to take his shopping cart back up to the store for him. When he saw my respect for him in the offer to help, I couldn’t shut him up. I just stood there and listened thinking about how he must have ranted about how things were before T.V.

Thanks for reading, John.