Learning to Talk
Re-cultivating the lost art of conversation through rejecting the "epidemic of constant communication" and embracing silence.
It’s an inevitable occurrence: you’ve come to the end of a lecture, job interview, or staff meeting, and the phrase that always rears its dauntingly ugly head faces you, once again.
“Any questions?”
Research has shown that one of the key principles of being a robust conversationalist is the ability to inquire — to show one’s engagement, curiosity, and interest in their peers. So why is it so hard? Conversation and inquiry begin with active listening, so it’s hard not to wonder: has this skill been lost within a generation whose attention spans have become undeniably stunted? And if so, how do we re-cultivate these in-person conversation skills?
Being able to communicate virtually — via text, email, etc. — has undoubtedly hindered our ability to truly be engaged and capable of working on our feet in face-to-face conversation. We take the time to fully digest digital messages before responding to them, tailoring them to perfection to fit the way we want to be perceived. In relationships, text etiquette often communicates unspoken signals; we regularly feel the obligation to send multiple messages a day, not take too long (or too quickly) to reply, and offer a constant update on our whereabouts.
calls this the “epidemic of constant communication.” In her essay of the same name, she writes:“Not every relationship needs the steady drip of updates, the play-by-play of each passing hour. Some thrive on it. Others suffocate. After time alone, I’ve come to love my independence, to cherish the silence between messages, the space to exist without explanation.”
This has made me wonder: Is the profundity we are lacking in communication simply a byproduct of the hyper-regular, watered-down (perhaps unnecessary) words that we send and receive to one another on a daily basis? Being able to reach people on any day, at any time, has us taking conversation for granted, devaluing it, and thus setting a flawed precedent for how we proceed in it. Not only is this “space to exist without explanation” so important, but it’s critical for us in order to become comfortable in silence, and ultimately, in our own thoughts.
It’s in our collective nature as social beings to try to fill the inevitable silences in conversation. These attempts to band-aid what we perceive as uncomfortable silence more often than not result in awkward, clumsy exchanges of thoughtless words. I find that one of my worst habits in conversation is regularly attempting to finish other people’s sentences when they make a slight pause from connecting one thought to another. I could venture to say that this behavior is simply another byproduct of an incessant need to fill space with words — the absolute inability to, as Mia Wallace says in Pulp Fiction, “just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.”
Ultimately, I think it is the way we should view conversation — as something special and intimate — that is the way it should be treated. Not something to be taken for granted. Although it is an everyday occurrence, to communicate is a privilege, and its moments should be savoured in slow, thoughtful, intimate exchanges that reflect the truest parts of ourselves. (Obviously, not every conversation needs to be a TED Talk, and there is so much value to be found in stomach-clutching, laughter-inducing interactions, but I digress.) If anything, the intimacy of in-person communication is what makes interpersonal relationships so much more special. There is no need to rush things, no need to overuse language, no need to feel uncomfortable letting thoughts linger in the air. I learn the most about myself (and the world around me) when I sit in silence, my surroundings as my only visual and audio stimulation. Through learning about ourselves in this intimate manner, we become better equipped to articulate ourselves, and thoughts of this shared space of human experience in which we all exist.
I often think of the people who have come in and out of my life. For the time we had, we both took and received from each other in the form of words and experiences. We both learned and unlearned. People can disappear from your life at any moment, so why spend your time doing anything other than embracing this vast, complex, and confusing learning experience that is interpersonal relationships and the state of togetherness? Laugh and gush and fight and cry, and above all else: listen. People come in and out of my life, but the constant in all of those relationships is that they taught me something about myself or others. The moment you allow your brain to slow down (for a beat, then two, then three, until you are sitting in a comfortable, shared silence) is when you begin to crack this code — when you begin to learn to talk again.
For her essay “the intimacy of never speaking again,”
from “personal scriptures,” writes:“There’s something sacred in the quiet. Something twistedly tender about knowing that we are both carrying the same memories, unspoken and untouched, like a weird little time capsule we buried and agreed never to dig up. That is real intimacy. Not a soft launch. Not a photo dump. Just shared silence, heavy as hell.”