“Just Killing Time”

                                                            “Just Killing Time”

by Marco M. Pardi

Note: All comments are appreciated, read, and responded to accordingly.  The comments sections for all previous articles have been opened for use.  I will certainly look forward to your comments. 

“Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.” Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) Virtue #2 (“Silence”), 1784, Autobiography 1798

So much is written about the benefits and virtues of solitude.  And, in large part I agree.  However I also recognize the hazards that lie therein.  And, I recognize that daily life for most people includes “socializing” in some form and duration. I have observed people who appeared to be masters of socializing.  They remind me of how, as a youth, I stood in a stone canyon formed by school buildings and bounced a tennis ball off the three walls facing me.  These people are able to pivot in a crowded room, reflecting the statements thrown into the air, never showing a sign of genuinely felt impact or contemplation.  And, like the walls, never initiating an original throw of their own.  There is never a sign of how deep they are, no matter the force of what’s thrown against them.  Is anyone in there?  Has that 1970’s computer game, “Pong” infiltrated human life, or did the game arise from the human condition?

Much as I realize the mental health value of occasional socializing, I dread having to do it.  That old, “I’d rather have a root canal” comes to mind.  But just as regular dental checks prevent the need for root canals, occasional social events may prevent the need for a personality canal.

I have long recognized that I seem to have few things in common with many people, at least at the level on which they operate during social events.  I have utterly no interest in sports, except Formula 1 racing.  And, my interest is in the technology, not the drivers.  I have no interest in film stars, their sex habits, their latest diets.  Even when someone dares open the field of politics I hear the discussions as considerations of the illusions, the mirrors, the Punch & Judy show with no one daring to consider the puppet masters and the skill with which they delude the “voting public”.  Probably the most common response to comments I make is, “Uh, hum” before the subject moves on.

Although at times I see my inability to engage in “small talk” as a kind of personal failing – after all, a social scientist should be able to navigate society, my greatest distress arises when I seem unable to connect with a dog, cat, or horse to whom I’ve been introduced.  That is very troubling indeed.  In fact, social gatherings at someone’s home are, for me, dreadful unless there are pets with whom I can quietly slip away and converse.  Absent those, I look for interesting bookshelves and art.  Without these resources I can only watch the loud, jabbering crowd as if through a fluoroscope, their mandibles bobbing up and down, their skeletons assuming awkward angles as they “put their best foot forward.”

I have no desire to leap into and be accepted in this mosh pit.  If anything, I desire only to learn the secret formula developed by H. G. Well’s Invisible Man.  Judging by the interactions in the last few events, I must be close.

The literary scene of the early 1980’s came alive with books about the coming Information Age. I read a couple of them, but still wondered at precisely what the information would be.  I certainly did not foresee the advent of the world wide web, Google, or gaggle, or whatever.  Nor did I foresee the endless offerings of misinformation, propaganda, and outright lies cited authoritatively as, “It’s on the internet.”

My family had a very large cabinet based record player with full am/fm/sw capability.  Around age 9 I became fascinated with crawling very slowly along the short wave bands, listening to some clear text broadcasts but also learning to discern random static (noise) from signals such as Morse code.  I became fairly successful at learning Morse code but was still unable to decipher it at the speeds usually heard.  Secret invasion plans?  Or strudel recipes?  Of course, successful decipherment would hinge on knowing the language the code was conveying.

At age 12 I repurposed our electric train transformer into the power base for a working telegraph system, connecting two distant rooms in our basement with wires.  It took only one good jolt to realize I needed to depress the key with a non-conductive material.  Now, what to say?  “Watson, come here. I need you”? But since no one else in the family was interested I simply enlarged my venue for talking to myself – a profile which served me well years later hosting a call-in radio talk show.  At least at the radio station my engineer carefully and frequently used the 7 second delay to screen the incoming curses and threats.  I wonder what a 7 second delay would be like at a social gathering.

Years later, in London, I bought a table model Telefunken am/fm/sw radio.  Again crawling the short wave bands I heard a proliferation of burst transmissions – encoded transmissions pre-recorded and transmitted at ultra high speed.  The intended recipients, supplied with recording devices, would have been notified of the date and exact time of the transmission and often the recording speed.  All that in hand they could record and decode the message, code book if necessary at one side.  Within limits, time was not an issue. But decoding the streaming cross currents in a social gathering must be done in real time, leaving no room for error or clarification if one intends to respond.  Which I think partially explains the apparent phenomenon of people waiting for another to finish, or just break their speech, so they can insert their statements. Leaving one to wonder……so many people speaking, but who is really listening?  I’ll see your noise and raise you one.

Noise is an issue.  My hearing was damaged by military ordnance.  But how close may I stand, or want to stand when talking with someone.  Dinner gatherings in restaurants are usually the worst.  The background din, especially if there is some cacophony generously called music, presses people close enough to qualify for their own room to say nothing of extra leniency when wiping someone else’s thoughts off your cheek.  I take great interest in the dinnerware. A quiet and well timed fart also serves to maintain spacing.

And then there is the interesting phenomenon of closing the interaction.  My nightly two hour radio show had a fixed duration; like it or not, network news would blow over any utterances I may yet have left.  So I could always watch the clock or my engineer’s hand signal, and sign off with some insipid statement like, “Well, that’s all for now.”  Or, “Bugger off, you backwoods morons.” (Thanks for the delay, engineer)

But I’m fascinated by the choreography of parting, especially in stand-up social gatherings.  When two people seem to be losing their momentum the furtive glances begin, the hopeful looks for a third party to arrive and grease the departure for at least one of the dyad.  Failing this, there’s usually the unnecessary trip to the restroom (wherein the sheer number of prayers offered for deliverance rivals that of any church I know of) or a return to the buffet table for another pass at the collapsing fare.

But the Grand Finale is almost worth waiting for.  The sheerest prick in the social membrane, the first couple leaving, sparks an excretion of cytoplasm from the social cell that brings awe to the most experienced cell biologist.

I’m certainly no Behaviorist, but social gatherings do inspire more interest in what people do than in what they say.

Ah, well pardon me for a moment, will you?