There's a big hole in my pocket. If there wasn't, the money wouldn't be able to go in.
---
What brings people together? What gets people talking?
I'll tell you. It's a common interest. Common interests bring people, who otherwise have nothing else in common, together. JCs have their socially insecure people, England has their football fanatics, Japan has their workaholics, Korea has their gamers... well, maybe not, since they don't get together in real life. Much similarly, you and I both have a common interest in words, me in writing them and you in reading them, though I doubt anyone enjoys reading this anymore, the dust bunnies on my cbox a wonderful testament to that statement. Indeed, the power of something appealing unites people, unites groups, sometimes even unites a country. You know it when people declare holidays to watch their country play in the world cup, a privilege us losers in Singapore are likely to be privy to anytime in the near future.
But now that we have our very own basketball team with a grand total of 2 local talents....
Nah.
Common interests, however, while serving as a unifying factor, can also be a social trap, generating strange amounts of awkwardness when people start to lose interest or it just dies down. I'm sure the Italian man-in-a-suit didn't have much to say to the Pizza boy other than "Keep the change" two months after the world cup - You can only laugh at the stupidity of one balding Frenchmen for so long, after all. And when awkwardness ensues, there are two outcomes - dialogue and silence.
To start, let me say it that I hate it when people feel an overwhelming urge to move their mouth muscles. If you don't feel like smiling, just don't smile. And when you feel the urge to "create conversation", think twice. It gets rather irritating when people open their mouths just to break the silence or fill an imaginary gap in the conversation. It's okay if you're bored, but conversation should flow naturally, not be forced. You may not know this, but some people actually like silence, given how the world now is saturated with sound, such that in the absence of sound you actually feel a ringing in your ears while your eardrums recuperate from a day of endless chatter and meaningless listening.
This isn't to say that conversation is totally bad, it's just overly excessive. Even after we end our days sometimes we have to deal with the little voices in our heads. People all around play dumb talk-related gossip games such as Skulls and Crossphones, Pitch-a-Bitch and 2 Fake 2 Furious. The only reason bad sayings like "actions speak louder than words" and "the most important things are not said with words" only come about because of the sheer volume of words such that actually getting down to filtering out the true meaning becomes a hassle. If I could walk around with earplugs on while subtitles flash at the bottom of my vision I would ; That way I could choose to ignore them just by looking away, but nothing escapes your ears.
Case in point : Exams, where unlucky arts students always sit closest to the doors closest to the idiotic junior student population. During the lit paper, us students had to deal with varied distractions such as uproarious laughing from guys and incessant giggling from girls, the national anthem blaring over the system, and random gossip conversations while twits jiggle past the hall.
Silence, on the other hand, has found itself in an awkward position as of late. The way people make noise you'd think silence is an unwelcome concept in today's society, since it gets broken as soon as it arrives. Yet, when silence is wanted, it never really seems to arrive, because people have an aggressive urge where their mouth is concerned. I'm convinced that some people would be doing pullups with their lips if they were allowed to. In fact, silence is so rare that the only time we have it is when we slumber, and even then the sandman and his dreams dictate that the silence can get deafening.
Having said that, it's not all good. We all know about comfortable silence. It's the type that we feel irritated at when people flap their jaws to break it. There's also awkward silence which people feel the need to shatter completely, only to be lambasted by others. In other words, like many other things, no two people feel the same two silences, and that is the source of my irritation, but then again, if everyone felt the same things, it would not only be a boring world, but a communist one as well.
---
What brings people together? What gets people talking?
I'll tell you. It's a common interest. Common interests bring people, who otherwise have nothing else in common, together. JCs have their socially insecure people, England has their football fanatics, Japan has their workaholics, Korea has their gamers... well, maybe not, since they don't get together in real life. Much similarly, you and I both have a common interest in words, me in writing them and you in reading them, though I doubt anyone enjoys reading this anymore, the dust bunnies on my cbox a wonderful testament to that statement. Indeed, the power of something appealing unites people, unites groups, sometimes even unites a country. You know it when people declare holidays to watch their country play in the world cup, a privilege us losers in Singapore are likely to be privy to anytime in the near future.
But now that we have our very own basketball team with a grand total of 2 local talents....
Nah.
Common interests, however, while serving as a unifying factor, can also be a social trap, generating strange amounts of awkwardness when people start to lose interest or it just dies down. I'm sure the Italian man-in-a-suit didn't have much to say to the Pizza boy other than "Keep the change" two months after the world cup - You can only laugh at the stupidity of one balding Frenchmen for so long, after all. And when awkwardness ensues, there are two outcomes - dialogue and silence.
To start, let me say it that I hate it when people feel an overwhelming urge to move their mouth muscles. If you don't feel like smiling, just don't smile. And when you feel the urge to "create conversation", think twice. It gets rather irritating when people open their mouths just to break the silence or fill an imaginary gap in the conversation. It's okay if you're bored, but conversation should flow naturally, not be forced. You may not know this, but some people actually like silence, given how the world now is saturated with sound, such that in the absence of sound you actually feel a ringing in your ears while your eardrums recuperate from a day of endless chatter and meaningless listening.
This isn't to say that conversation is totally bad, it's just overly excessive. Even after we end our days sometimes we have to deal with the little voices in our heads. People all around play dumb talk-related gossip games such as Skulls and Crossphones, Pitch-a-Bitch and 2 Fake 2 Furious. The only reason bad sayings like "actions speak louder than words" and "the most important things are not said with words" only come about because of the sheer volume of words such that actually getting down to filtering out the true meaning becomes a hassle. If I could walk around with earplugs on while subtitles flash at the bottom of my vision I would ; That way I could choose to ignore them just by looking away, but nothing escapes your ears.
Case in point : Exams, where unlucky arts students always sit closest to the doors closest to the idiotic junior student population. During the lit paper, us students had to deal with varied distractions such as uproarious laughing from guys and incessant giggling from girls, the national anthem blaring over the system, and random gossip conversations while twits jiggle past the hall.
Silence, on the other hand, has found itself in an awkward position as of late. The way people make noise you'd think silence is an unwelcome concept in today's society, since it gets broken as soon as it arrives. Yet, when silence is wanted, it never really seems to arrive, because people have an aggressive urge where their mouth is concerned. I'm convinced that some people would be doing pullups with their lips if they were allowed to. In fact, silence is so rare that the only time we have it is when we slumber, and even then the sandman and his dreams dictate that the silence can get deafening.
Having said that, it's not all good. We all know about comfortable silence. It's the type that we feel irritated at when people flap their jaws to break it. There's also awkward silence which people feel the need to shatter completely, only to be lambasted by others. In other words, like many other things, no two people feel the same two silences, and that is the source of my irritation, but then again, if everyone felt the same things, it would not only be a boring world, but a communist one as well.
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