John D. Lloyd @johndlloyd: socializing/networking: i don’t follow pro sports and don’t always want to talk about work. suggestions?
ANSWER:
Small talk is the worst horror created by dinner parties, dates, the stupidly filled silences that have to be broken before meetings. Think of just the mechanical bodily functions, the saliva, the teeth moving, the bacteria, involved in defecating a conversation. We want nothing more than to be normal. To be Dick and Jane. Forming a corolla of bloated mouth to begin the word, so we can whistle out sound through constantly decaying teeth just to give off the appearance of being “one of the guys”.
Someone who is normal. Not only normal but one who can do “small talk.” So now we are normal and small like the rest. We belong, we endure in the disguise of our body so maybe we can live one more day. Maybe the “small talk” can get bigger. The date can turn into bodies clenching, meetings turning into millions, parties turning into love. But usually it’s nothing. Words spew out, they spin into space. They die. It’s small talk.
Never forget that “words” are a market, like any market. Like an ancient souk from the middle east, where silks are bartered for slaves. Like the stock market, where digital cash is bartered for digital pieces of corporate America. In other words, like in any market: WORDS are valued by supply versus demand.
To increase the value of your words, make them as few as possible. Reduce the supply. Then when you say words, make sure the value is high, so demand will increase. Lower supply, higher demand. Then everyone will want your words.
But when your words are just shat out like excrement and flushed away, nothing happens. Nothing grows. All the passion went for nothing. Enjoy the silence. Learn from the silence, live in the silence and, in the end, out of nowhere, the silence will kiss you back, and reward you for your patience.
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Now, the next question. How do we make sure our words have more value? Here’s how.