Ever feel like you come from another world? Imagine standing for eight hours and surrounded by people all talking with one another. Conversations shift from favorite meals, kids, family, vacations, work problems, relationships, shiny new things, drinking, drugs, smoking, sports, and weather, ordinary things. But never too engaging and only shallow surface talk. The words are basic, the language simple and often colored with colloquialisms and slang, coarse and narrow.
No one is delving into territories or topics that stand outside themselves. The myopia of the narrative expressions is woven to create the hero’s image of the narrator, a bold victim that thwarted the villainy of a malignant supervisor by standing up and witty retorts.
Often if engaging in conversation, the two parties manage to speak about themselves but never listen to the other. Or worse than that, although on the same plateau of life success, one will offer the wisdom they accrued by ending up in exactly the same place, and expect their revelatory direction to alter the other’s life.
My observation is, this is the world. In a broad social setting, we lack the moxy to delve into a substantive discourse. We push away and silence those who actually offer a different voice to keep the comfort levels high. That person becomes an alien among humans.
Would you prefer to be an alien? I know outside the weird looks, I at least think the conversation would be different.