The Art of Conversation

Has it been lost entirely amidst the clickity-clacks of text glibness and curt emails?

Do you ask about others as prerequisite to talk about yourself?

Do you live to discuss the misfortunes of others?

Is someone else's intrusion upon your space or time a frequent topic?

Is the folly of others in general a point of constant discussion?

Do you live for the conversation where your listener suddenly frowns, shakes their head, and emits some sort of "Jeez...whew!...oh my god...well I'm dashed...?"

Do you only feel that you have had satisfactory communication with another human when you've offered them another chance to feel helpless against the tides of reality?

Or maybe you are a Seeker, enlisting others in your search through twisted strands of logic to come up with an all-encompassing version of Why This or That is So.

-Do you cite previous empirical evidence for these chats?
-Do you invite your listener's knowledge? Do you do this in order to fill a gap in your own thought? Or do you merely ask your friend to bring over their toys so you can show them how much better your own are?
-Are you actually yearning to profess to someone all that you have gathered and fashioned into a grand sweeping Theory of Everything?
-Do you truly want to share something of your mind, or do you merely want to flex and fish for a compliment?
-Do you use conspicuously inappropriate terms, misuse words, and tangle it all into a cauldron of circumlocution in order to baffle and therefore win over your opponent? I mean conversant?

Do you use your intelligence as a blunt object? A laurel wreath?

Do you enjoy shitting on those with degrees? Are you fond of assigning alternate reasons for other peoples' education such as blue blood? Ed snobs? Ethnic competition?

Or perhaps the opposite is true, that you revel in the relative inadequate formal education of your partner, as this, you presume, assures that you will win every discussion?

Do you feel you have a Duty to inform others of global crisis issues? Do you believe because they did not know, they have never cared?

Do you love the sound of your own voice? Is your throat chakra spinning with all your platitudes?

Are you afraid of silence?

Are you afraid of not-knowing?

I sentence thee to a thorough reading of every "better to remain silent and be thought a fool..." quote ever written by people much smarter than I.