On Conversations

I recall being in my late teens or early twenties and speaking on the telephone with a rabbi/mentor of mine. I was alone in my brother's back bedroom of our childhood home. The topic turned to modes of communication. My advisor felt that writing was perhaps the strongest way of communicating because when you wrote it, it stayed there, for the other person to read and re-read. On the other hand, he said, when you talk on the phone, it's the weakest way of communicating because the words disappear as soon as they are spoken. When you speak in person, he felt, it's better than on the phone because of the eye contact and other elements of body language that make it more seriously real.

Years ago, when he was dating via long distance, a dear friend of mine confided that it was difficult, that he'd read that eighty percent of communication is non verbal. True that. I get that, there's a lot to body language. And yet conversations, words exchanged and feelings transmitted are as real as we let them be. Many people seem to not be fans of communication. They don't remember who says what, the words are like puffs of smoke blown out and gone.

I am a fan of the written word. I'm not sure how to rank things when placed up against each other - but this I believe: words matter. Back when I had that talk with that rabbi of mine, email didn't exist. Since then email has come and gone. I think email has great potential. It's the closest thing we have to letter writing. (Letter writing, unlike telegraphs, are still available by the way. And yet.) Emails have replaced letter writing for better or worse, worse being that most people don't want to read long emails. To most people a long email is over three words.

Txtng: Nt 4 mE. A dear friend of mine who is in an administrative position told me, when I asked him about texting that it is everything that I am not. Thank you. I see texting as having all the downsides of phoning, but with an exponent. If when you talk on the phone the words disappear immediately, when you text the words are never there to be able to disappear. It seems to drain words of meaning even more-so than other forms of "talking," which already seem pretty vacant of attention being paid.

I'll close for now with a story, which itself will soon be completely outdated. A woman was walking her young stroller aged son. They passed by a building which she pointed to.

"That's a library", she said, "We'll go there sometime."
"Library. What's a library? he asked.
"That's a place where you borrow books," she explained.
"Borrow books? You mean buy books?" her son replied, confused.
"No, no", she assured him, "you go there and take the books out to read and then bring them back when you're finished."
They looked at each other and she was at a loss, wondering how to explain this. After a moment's pause she said, "Like DVDs."
Oh", the boy immediately replied, "that sounds nice, let's go one day."