One of my favorite activities is having a nice, long, drawn out conversation with another person about almost absolutely nothing, solving world peace, why people won’t signal a turn in Texas, the pro’s and con’s of gun control, the weather, food in the United States, why flying is never boring no matter how much you’ve done, the fear of flying, garbage, cell phone, sports, Italian politics, the Mona Lisa, Boccaccio, and a host of golden daffodils. Sip a double espresso and listen as a friend goes on about their day, their concerns, what they had for lunch. I don’t always have time to do this, but my day is always better when I give myself a little recess from the stress of the day and let someone else tell me how their day went. Of course, I do my share of talking as well. Perhaps it is more important to actually have friends with whom you share a certain intimacy who will sit and listen to you as well. I know I’m not the most enthralling or interesting speaker myself, so listening to me ramble about making bread or leading a search committee is not the most dynamic conversation in the world. What is probably more important than the topics being discussed is the time spent with the other person. American work ethics, however, do not lend themselves to taking a coffee break and just chatting about the world. I guess there may be something to “all work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” To have a good conversation and meaningful interaction, paradoxically one does not have to talk about anything profound or transcendental. In fact, perhaps it would be better if one is not talking about anything profound at all. A slow give-and-take is all a body really needs, but perhaps the conversation is better if it’s not a strenuous debate on presidential election politics. Talking about the weather in Texas is just about mundane enough to qualify for the perfect conversation between two people who really want to hang out together, but who also don’t want to complicate their lives by talking about something that stirs conflict. Intimacy is seldom about conflict and more often about subjects and beliefs held in common. I would suggest that most people do not base their intimate interactions on debate, conflict, or strife. In fact, most people need intimacy to reaffirm their own identities by seeing themselves in others. Talking, a coffee conversation fits the bill entirely. Sure, one might spend some time laughing at the latest political fiasco coming out of Washington, or why handguns on a college campus is insane, or whether one might boost, or not, a flagging economy with economic incentives or tax relief, but it will always be more interesting to discuss which drunk starlet has been sent back to jail for violating her parole or who is going to win the Oscar for best-supporting actor. Life cannot be just work. There has to be more. I find that while talking to another person, my mind tends to work on other problems which I might being trying to solve at any given moment. I’m sure my blood pressure goes does, as do my levels of stress. Having a nice long chat with a friendly person is like going out for recess and letting off some steam, and breaking the day’s routine can only be a good thing. We spend our whole lives wallowing in our daily routines, mindlessly bending our wills to schedules, time tables, and calendars. Now these aids help us to get our work done, which is good, but too much of anything can be a negative thing. In the isolation of work schedules, we eschew human interaction and robotically dedicate our time and energies to work, just work. Getting out and talking to another person may be just the ticket for breaking out of our zombie-like dedication and working on our overall good mental health.
Category Archives: talking
On talking
One of my favorite activities is having a nice, long, drawn out conversation with another person about almost absolutely nothing, solving world peace, why people won’t signal a turn in Texas, the pro’s and con’s of gun control, the weather, food in the United States, why flying is never boring no matter how much you’ve done, the fear of flying, garbage, cell phone, sports, Italian politics, the Mona Lisa, Boccaccio, and a host of golden daffodils. Sip a double espresso and listen as a friend goes on about their day, their concerns, what they had for lunch. I don’t always have time to do this, but my day is always better when I give myself a little recess from the stress of the day and let someone else tell me how their day went. Of course, I do my share of talking as well. Perhaps it is more important to actually have friends with whom you share a certain intimacy who will sit and listen to you as well. I know I’m not the most enthralling or interesting speaker myself, so listening to me ramble about making bread or leading a search committee is not the most dynamic conversation in the world. What is probably more important than the topics being discussed is the time spent with the other person. American work ethics, however, do not lend themselves to taking a coffee break and just chatting about the world. I guess there may be something to “all work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” To have a good conversation and meaningful interaction, paradoxically one does not have to talk about anything profound or transcendental. In fact, perhaps it would be better if one is not talking about anything profound at all. A slow give-and-take is all a body really needs, but perhaps the conversation is better if it’s not a strenuous debate on presidential election politics. Talking about the weather in Texas is just about mundane enough to qualify for the perfect conversation between two people who really want to hang out together, but who also don’t want to complicate their lives by talking about something that stirs conflict. Intimacy is seldom about conflict and more often about subjects and beliefs held in common. I would suggest that most people do not base their intimate interactions on debate, conflict, or strife. In fact, most people need intimacy to reaffirm their own identities by seeing themselves in others. Talking, a coffee conversation fits the bill entirely. Sure, one might spend some time laughing at the latest political fiasco coming out of Washington, or why handguns on a college campus is insane, or whether one might boost, or not, a flagging economy with economic incentives or tax relief, but it will always be more interesting to discuss which drunk starlet has been sent back to jail for violating her parole or who is going to win the Oscar for best-supporting actor. Life cannot be just work. There has to be more. I find that while talking to another person, my mind tends to work on other problems which I might being trying to solve at any given moment. I’m sure my blood pressure goes does, as do my levels of stress. Having a nice long chat with a friendly person is like going out for recess and letting off some steam, and breaking the day’s routine can only be a good thing. We spend our whole lives wallowing in our daily routines, mindlessly bending our wills to schedules, time tables, and calendars. Now these aids help us to get our work done, which is good, but too much of anything can be a negative thing. In the isolation of work schedules, we eschew human interaction and robotically dedicate our time and energies to work, just work. Getting out and talking to another person may be just the ticket for breaking out of our zombie-like dedication and working on our overall good mental health.
On bifurcating paths
How do we end up where we are? The other day a visiting student asked why I became a college professor, and I was at a loss for words. The bifurcating paths of my own life seem chaotic, capricious, and strange. How does one pick a major? Deciding a path of studies is simple for many, but how did a boy from the prairie of southern Minnesota decide to study a language to which he has no ties, neither genetic nor tradition? I had no family in Spain. None of my family had ever been a Spanish teacher or a professor of literature. My people are farmers who tilled the ground, raised chickens and pigs, milked cowes, bailed hay, and picked corn. Nobody had ever conjugated a verb in Spanish, no one had ever read the Cid or Don Quixote, no one had ever worked in a university, written a scholarly paper, or published a book. So an economics professor who didn’t know me put me in a Spanish class when I was a freshmen, but only because I had already studied Spanish for five years in junior high and high school. I had done that because my mother and the Spanish teacher were best friends who had met in the League of Women Voters. So what happens if the Spanish teacher’s husband doesn’t get a job in the local college that brings him (and his Spanish teaching wife) to my home town? What would have happened if I hadn’t had a politically active mother who was interested in social justice for women? Where do the bifurcating paths begin? Does it matter that my father had a terrible job in another town that motivated him to search for better work in the town where I grew up? The paths have been splitting over and over again for decades and continue to split even as I write this. So I majored in Spanish at an American-Lutheran-Swedish school whose specialty was really pre-med majors and Lutheran pastors. After I graduated I couldn’t get a decent job, but I was motivated to go back to school by a random comment by a favorite History professor–“What about Middlebury?” he said. After I graduated from Middlebury I decided I wanted to live in Europe for awhile, so I did that. Six years earlier, in 1980, walking past a bulletin board at St. Louis University in Madrid I saw an advertisement for the graduate program in Spanish at the University of Minnesota. I applied in 1985, they loved me, I loved them, and I graduated with my PhD in medieval Spanish literature in 1993. The combination of happenstance, historical caprice (Franco was dead), luck, coincidence, serendipitous causalities, and unnatural timing have carried me through the vortex of the space-time continuum to this place called Waco. If the dominoes had not fallen in a very specific way, I might be someone completely different, but even knowing that, I wouldn’t change anything, and I say that as if I had any control over any of that chain of choices and happenings. I am the most unlikely person doing a most unlikely job given my history, family and circumstances. How does this happen?
On bifurcating paths
How do we end up where we are? The other day a visiting student asked why I became a college professor, and I was at a loss for words. The bifurcating paths of my own life seem chaotic, capricious, and strange. How does one pick a major? Deciding a path of studies is simple for many, but how did a boy from the prairie of southern Minnesota decide to study a language to which he no ties, neither genetic nor tradition? I had no family in Spain. None of my family had ever been a Spanish teacher or a professor of literature. My people are farmers who tilled the ground, raised chickens and pigs, milked cowes, bailed hay, and picked corn. Nobody had ever conjugated a verb in Spanish, no one had ever read the Cid or Don Quixote, no one had ever worked in a university, written a scholarly paper, or published a book. So an economics professor who didn’t know me put me in a Spanish class when I was a freshmen, but only because I had already studied Spanish for five years in junior high and high school. I had done that because my mother and the Spanish teacher were best friends who had met in the League of Women Voters. So what happens if the Spanish teacher’s husband doesn’t get a job in the local college that brings him (and his Spanish teaching wife) to my home town? What would have happened if I hadn’t had a politically active mother who was interested in social justice for women? Where do the bifurcating paths begin? Does it matter that my father had a terrible job in another town that motivated him to search for better work in the town where I grew up? The paths have been splitting over and over again for decades and continue to split even as I write this. So I majored in Spanish at an American-Lutheran-Swedish school whose specialty was really pre-med majors and Lutheran pastors. After I graduated I couldn’t get a decent job, but I was motivated to go back to school by a random comment by a favorite History professor–“What about Middlebury?” he said. After I graduated from Middlebury I decided I wanted to live in Europe for awhile, so I did that. Six years earlier, in 1980, walking past a bulletin board at St. Louis University in Madrid I saw an advertisement for the graduate program in Spanish at the University of Minnesota. I applied in 1985, they loved me, I loved them, and I graduated with my PhD in medieval Spanish literature in 1993. The combination of happenstance, historical caprice (Franco was dead), luck, coincidence, serendipitous causalities, and unnatural timing have carried me through the vortex of the space-time continuum to this place called Waco. If the dominoes had not fallen in a very specific way, I might be someone completely different, but even knowing that, I wouldn’t change anything, and I say that as if I had any control over any of that chain of choices and happenings. I am the most unlikely person doing a most unlikely job given my history, family and circumstances. How does this happen?