Theories

I played a game awhile ago called Urban Myth. It was very enlightening. Most of the things that our mothers have told us over the years turned out to be myths. Carrots really don't do anything for your night vision. Watching television in the dark isn't going to ruin your eyesight. Spinach isn't a high source of iron. I was shocked. I had been watching TV with the lights on while eating my carrots and my spinach cause I was trying to cover my bases. It made me wonder how many other things that I am fed everyday as "gospel" truth really are just nice theories that people spout off not really knowing the whole truth.

This brings me to mosquitoes. Earlier this spring, there were so many wild and contradictory stories about mosquitoes that it made my head spin. It seemed every person I talked to had a bit of a different twist on why there were so many, what would get rid of them, and which wind had blew them here. None of these fabrications were based on fact and really did not change the glaring reality that there were mosquitoes and that there were a lot of them. Funny how people hear something and then choose to either pass it on in the next conversation that they have with someone or store it away in the memory bank as a wierd tidbit of information, which is what I did with the mosquito information after a good laugh at all the bunk that people spread around.

After playing this game and all the mosquito fables I started to really analyse what comes out of my own mouth. Am I merely regurgitating things that other people have told me as a means to carry on a conversation or do I speak about what I do know, reality and truth from my own experience? I can sure pick it out in the conversations that I have now. The more awkward you feel around the person you are talking to, the more the theories pop into the conversation. My theory is that we are more truthful and real with people that we know will see through our talk of mosquitoes, carrots and television. Generally speaking, we aren't that great at truthful and real, at least I'm not. It's easier to not go deeper than generalities and theories. To keep it all on a philisophical playing field is safe. It doesn't cause change in us if we only scratch the surface, and even then it may not even be truth that we are speaking.

I totally understand that it is impossible to have the real kinds of conversations with every single person that we talk to everyday. Those telemarketers would be in for a shock if you started telling them about your day and even more so if you asked them about theirs. Sometimes conversations are about relaying information, facts. Like when you talk to the tellar at the bank. They are more like transactions. You don't leave that situation and go and tell everyone that you paid your power bill and made a deposit for $235.00. No one really cares. But, when you have the opportunity to really talk and really listen, weed out the theories and take a risk. Be real. Ask good questions. Listen. It's no myth that we have a lot to learn when it comes to relating.