Now You’re Talking

Humans can do alot of things, like juggling whilst walking a balance beam. But we are also blessed with a particular skill.  Speech.

Our brain and vocal chords have allowed us to develop the most complex and diverse methods of expression, setting us apart from all other living beings.  We’ve developed a global diversity of languages, using our words to connect, share, and demonstrate our understanding of one another. We’re storytellers, and story writers.  Singers and songwriters.  Language is such a precious gift in the ways it can bring us together and inspire us.

Whether it’s visual or auditory – written, spoken or signed language – it’s all about communication.  However you look at it, we all have a voice.

It’s also about connection, something which has been on my mind lately; the idea of six degrees of separation, and how it can be proved diagrammatically when you dig just below the surface.

So why do things seemed so skewed towards disconnection sometimes?  I’m sure there’s an endless blur of missed opportunities every day.

In a time not so very long ago, in a galaxy, well, right about here actually, we were all very busy.  We rushed around complaining about how terribly busy we were, how we hardly had time to scratch ourselves, how we’d give anything to catch a break.  To just have a lie-in once in a while, or a night-off from the calendar of events.

Yet even in our leisure time we were scheduling our activities.  Dashing off to that yoga class for tips on how to relax, diarising and dissecting our waking hours into sub-sections of timetables in order to get everything done.  Because unless you lived life right up to the edges, you were not being efficient.  You were just wasting time.  Being lazy.  Missing out.

Busyness has quite a few drawbacks, one of which is feeling tired.  Stress also comes to mind, and who could honestly say they lived a stress-free life in the BC (Before Covid) era?  Instead of pausing to sniff the wattle, we didn’t even notice it had come into bloom.

Okay, so a few people had already started to get dewy eyed about slow-living, about dropping out and growing their own vegetables.  More time at home, and less on the commute.  Fewer obligations.  I’m certainly in that category.  But for the most part we were all competing to see how much we could crush into a 24 hour period, and trying to keep up with the David Joneses.

To be honest, the whole thing had been giving me the Jimmy Britts for more than a while.  Rushing along the travelator of life, being propelled through our days at breakneck pace, facing-off the evolving menu of advertising (get rid of that old thing, and get one of these), dashing for the bus, missing the train, juggling timetables; desperate for that one sunrise when we could let ourselves off the hook and maybe, just maybe, have that Sunday morning lie-in.

So within all of that, it’s no wonder we found it difficult to stand still for long enough to get any sort of connection with our fellow hoomans.

In retrospect, it seems obvious that we needed to break the cycle, and to develop some new habits.  It’s just that the solution presented itself on such a Titanic scale, and with the same catastrophic absence of warning.  It arrived as an all-encompassing global pandemic, the total breakdown of society, a large serve of economic meltdown, a sledgehammer of fiscal insecurity and a directive for everyone to be sent to their room.  But thankfully no iceberg.

It got our attention, and what a way to do it.  Everyone hit pause simultaneously, and not by choice.

All this for something so small you can only see it with a microscope.  Who could’ve known the slash-and-burn effects as it circumnavigated the globe?  And it sure can travel fast.  Now that’s what I call Going Viral.

Back to the present, and here we all are, sequestered in our homes, spending more time with our pets, finally getting that bike out of the shed, and finding that every day is like Sunday.  (Which is exactly what those dour nineties northern soul-masters, The Smiths, once sang about, to the tune of jangly guitars.)  My point being that for the foreseeable future we have a whole stack of endless Sundays lying in wait for us at home, so it’s time we started to find our voices, and use them well.

In Melbourne, on a mild and sunny winter’s day on the 9th of July, we all downed-tools and closed our doors again; at least for the next six weeks.  D-day had arrived.  Day one of another total lockdown.  Waiting for the second wave to come crashing down upon us, and not a single surfboard in sight.

The stranglehold on our freedom will surely begin to tighten as we return to our burrows, just as the chasm in our connectivity widens with the resumption of isolation and social distancing.  Right back where we started.  Daunting, yes, especially when you thought you were within inches of the finishing line.  Yet for some reason I felt steeped in optimism as I walked the quiet streets yesterday; imbued with a lightness that belied the negativity of the news.  Perhaps it was the sunshine?

We all have an inherent need to connect and belong.  Having been deprived of our usual social interactions, the one thing we’re all craving is conversation.  Passing the time of day with a dog walker, chatting to the people who scan your groceries, getting to know your neighbours.

In our little community of apartments I know some of the residents by sight, and a few of us chat when we cross paths.  But in recent weeks we’ve had conversations and found commonalities.  We’ve laughed and sympathised, been stunned by the six degrees of separation, and opened up our worlds to new possibilities.  There are some amazing people living on my doorstep, if only we’d started talking sooner.

We all have a story, so go out and share yours.  Initiate conversations, ask someone how they’re feeling, connect with some of the people who previously passed fleetingly through your busy BC life.  Use the opportunity.  Use your voice.

I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.