Get Off the Phone!

Why do we want to talk to each other? To add something to the grocery list? To complain about our neighbor? The government? The weather? Or just to gossip? We all seem to be talking, talking, talking wherever we are, wherever we go. But it seems that the conversations have steadily become less and less meaningful, and more and more disconnected and banal.

Perhaps this is the inevitable result of too many modes of communication available every hour of the day or night. No one message can be very important when we know we can send another one in the very next minute. I can’t help but wonder what we would be doing if we weren’t talking, talking, talking. Unfortunately, we might be watching TV, which could be worse. Or we might do something creative we don’t have time for with all that talking going on.

We could be singing, or gardening, or inventing, or painting, or writing, or building something. Such endless possibilities! I listen to music that reaches my heart and wonder if it ever would have been written if the composer had gone mad over communicating at all hours of the day and night. Or would that book I just read have been written if the author were too busy texting his pals, but not seeing people in person, not seeing their expressions or their body language or how they look when they laugh.

Oh well, I know I’m not going to stem the tide of endless fractured conversation, but still, I plead to those who could be doing something creative to opt for doing instead of blabbing. You can’t connect to that marvelous flow that comes from within if you are endlessly talking