A colleague of mine at Chabot College once asked me for a favor: He wouldn’t be able to attend the annual open meeting of the Faculty Association, at which the union officers would update us about their most recent negotiations with the college administration. Could I please attend the meeting, and then let him know afterwards what happened?
I saw him in the hallway late that afternoon, and he asked me, “So, what happened at the meeting?”
“Well,” I said, “Charlotte got up and said some things, and then she introduced Tom, who said some things. Then Dave said some things….”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “What did they say?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably nothing important, or at least nothing significant enough for me to remember.”
He looked at me as if I were an imbecile. “I thought you were going to tell me what happened at the meeting!”
“But that is what happened at the meeting,” I said. “Charlotte said some things, and then Tom said some things….”
Needless to say, he never again asked me for a similar favor. But I learned something from that conversation — namely, that he and I had different definitions of the word “happened.”
In retrospect, I admit to having been in the wrong in that situation. But I think my mistake was understandable. People say things all the time, and hardly ever does the content of what they say matter more than the fact that they said it. Think of graduation ceremonies: Apart from the handing out of diplomas, the only thing that happens is that people make speeches. The school administrators make speeches, the valedictorian and salutatorian make speeches, and a special guest VIP makes a speech. Looking back on the graduations you’ve attended, do you remember anything that any of those people said? Most likely you don’t, because what they said doesn’t matter. What matters is that oratory was delivered, preferably with an air of great significance. If nobody gave a speech, there would be no ceremony.
What is true of graduation ceremonies is true of much human interaction. Our society offers very few ways to connect with people, other than through conversation. As much as I might want to, I can’t reach out and physically touch you unless we already know each other well. I can’t gaze into your eyes or project telepathically into your mind. I can’t even sing in close harmony with you unless we both happen to be musicians who know the same songs. All I can do is talk with you, and the fact of our talking matters much more than whatever we happen to be talking about. I have been known to claim (admittedly with some hyperbole) that the true subject of any conversation is “I love you.“
There are exceptions, of course. There are plenty of interactions whose primary purpose is the transmission of information — getting directions, for example, or listening to a news report. (Clearly, the union meeting I attended should have fallen into this category.) And even in ordinary conversations, the meaning of the words has some importance. But — like the cat who ignores the fancy pet-bed you bought in favor of the cardboard box that the bed came in — I find much more satisfaction in the vessel that contains the words than in the words themselves.
I’m not sure how much of this is universal, and how much is just me. I’ve long known that my brain is wired funny, and one symptom of the miswiring is difficulty with processing spoken language. If someone is talking, I can concentrate on parsing the words for meaning, or I can relax and experience the energy of the person who is speaking, but I can’t easily do both. As you can imagine, the more I like a person, the more I tend to savor the feeling of being in their presence — which means that I’m less likely to take in the literal meaning of what they’re saying. This often proves embarrassing later, when they assume that I’ll remember something significant that they told me, and I don’t.
But it can’t all be me. Think about the last time you went to a movie with someone, and how different that was from going to see a movie by yourself. You and your companion don’t converse during the movie — at least I hope you don’t — and yet simply having that person in the seat next to you changes the nature of your experience. That impalpable element, I believe, is what gives most conversations their flavor. Writing about this makes me sad, because we’re in the midst of a pandemic in which most human contact is off-limits. Conversing by phone or screen feels empty, because information is the only thing those media can transmit. Even meeting in person falls short, because it’s hard to feel the visceral presence of someone who is masked and sitting six feet away. All we have to offer each other is words, and words are inherently unsatisfying. I long for the return of a time when meaningful things don’t just get said, but happen.
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