Small Talk

                                                                  Small Talk

                                                           by Marco M. Pardi

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“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.” Robert Frost. (1875-1963)

I’m far better at small listening than I am at small talking.  Making the required rounds of the social circuit is like an endless prelude to a prostate exam; people circling to probe my inner being, never quite getting there.  All foreplay.

Rotating home dinner parties must, in my view, be held in homes with interesting cases of books, art in various media, and at least one pet – species irrelevant.  I’ll pass a pleasant evening with a Gila Monster.

Some time ago several neighborhood couples decided on a group trip to see a film and have dinner afterward.  The film was The Constant Gardener, based on the book of the same title by John LeCarre.  A meticulously in depth analysis of the pharmaceutical cartels and how they exploit Sub-Saharan African populations as guinea pigs for what they hope to be lucrative drugs,  it was filmed in East Africa and painfully depicted the chasm between utter poverty and powerlessness and the opulence of the exploiters.  It also, properly and accurately, portrayed the fate awaiting those who would dare expose the reality of drug testing and its toll on unsuspecting populations until the formula is either tweaked toward safety or quietly abandoned.  The scenes were courageous, and again left me wondering for LeCarre’s safety.

One might reasonably have expected some mention of the film as we afterward gathered for a meal at a nearby restaurant.  For more than an hour the talk went back and forth, breaking into women with women and men with men as it usually does.  Not a word about the film from either camp.  Not one.  I did pick up information on sports teams and new babies, or maybe it was sports babies and new teams.  I wondered whether I,  in a moment of thoughtfulness, got separated from my group and went to see the wrong film.  Seeing these neighbors separately over the next few days did I hear mention of the film?  Never. 

Just after the astounding breakthrough at the High Energy Collider at CERN I was at another dinner party.  Somewhere along the main course I said to those nearest me, “I’m quite excited about the confirmation of the Higgs boson and am really looking forward to the implications it will have for our understanding of dark matter and dark energy.”  Pause.  Response.  “Well, if it gets me better gas mileage in my pick up truck it’s fine with me.”  The dessert was good, but the Cocker Spaniel with whom I later discussed the Higgs implications was far more rewarding. 

Despite my years of trying to fit all the material into limited class time with start to finish lectures,  I listen more than I speak.  Speaking only repeats what I know.  But it was there I learned the difference between talking to someone and talking with someone.

In other capacities this realization was useful.  A Briefing Officer once described her session with me as “talking to a Black Hole.”  Another said, “It was like talking to the Buddha.”  I’m sure neither of them understood what I really heard from them but I accepted Black Hole and Buddha gratefully.

At a State Department reception for the new Ambassador from Outer Panglossia,  the Honorable Yurs Foraprice and wife,  Persuada,  I listened as our Ambassador, the Honorable Excess Gotrocks and wife, Harpy exchanged wisdom with them.  A political appointee, not a career diplomat, Ambassador Gotrock’s diplomatic portfolio was a gallery of countries and officials he had successfully bribed in “the American interest.” Plastics may have been the operant word for Dustin Hoffman (The Graduate), but that was so last century.  Outsourcing was the new mana.  Labor laws, what labor laws?  Environmental impact?  Spell that, please?

Bogey at 12 o’clock, closing fast.  “And what is your function?”  “I’m an anthropologist.”  “I see. The weather here is delightful.”  More interested in the whether, I still manage to form the acceptable utterance.

Pardon me, but the house is on fire.  World population is squirting itself toward 8 billion, approximately half of existing species will likely be extinct in 25 years,  Nation-States are dissolving into Nation-Tribes,  water wars are already replacing oil wars,  the environment has likely passed the tipping point,  the vast bulk of antibiotics in this country are fed to livestock,  transmitted to us and excreted into the water supply mutating fish, diseases are mutating faster than we have antibiotic technology to match, Big Agro pesticides are killing off the plant pollinators, the U.S. Supreme Court is quickly moving toward the legitimization of Plutocracy (known in an earlier century as Fascism), and social gatherings across the land are humming about weight loss programs and which college football player will win a hideous sports trophy.

Okay. I hereby go on record as Not Getting It.  Is it in the water, the warming water the frogs are so foolishly enjoying?  I’m just no fun in social gatherings.  But, my membership is due to expire at some future point.  I will not consider renewal.

There is still time for me to navigate the discussions with my grandchildren,  threading through the growing up issues of school, friends, activities, and the crises we must also learn to face.  Small talk woven through with the not so small. My empathy goes out to Cassandra, a woman for whom small talk was an impossibility.