Skip to main content

Conversational Decay

Conversational Decay - Sorry for the week -long delay and welcome back everyone! - Last Monday as I was sitting in the Airport Newark, NJ and waiting for my outbound flight to Europe, I seriously could not help but shake my head. What the heck had just happened, I just could not stop wondering? After having landed and having been taxied to our designated spot, we were swiftly rounded up and bussed to Terminal C. Suddenly rather literally stranded on the tarmac after an abrupt and more or less unannounced midway discharge and with the prospect of an alleged transfer to Terminal B, the five remaining passengers including myself were now exchanging puzzled looks. Not until someone had pointed out that his flight was about to board within the next ten minutes, the busdriver sighed and more than reluctantly spoke into his walkie- talkie. Only then, he finally proved willing and ready to set his bus in motion again. Alright, we were eventually all dropped off at Terminal B, Gates 40- 47. What in the world, I thought to myself and began to roam around until I spotted a seemingly helpful face behind one of the counters. So I walked up to that black girl and inquired about Gate 60. Well, she was anything but talkative, much less friendly or God forbid conclusive. From that chump change of mumble jumble which she hurriedly addressed me with, I inferred that I needed to leave the Terminal again and basically return to where I had just come from, get back on the same bus and well, move on to Terminal B. Excuse me, say what? I instantly felt the onset of a severe tension headache creep up from my neck as I was dumbfoundedly staring at that sign "Shuttle Service Terminal A & C" and referring to exactly that discrepancy. Thereupon that airport staffer merely chuckled and brushed it off with a mild shoulder shrug. Then after a ten- second delay, she came forward with a suggestion which I only grasped marginally at best. "Could you please slow down a tad, so I understand you better", I now apologetically responded in order to resume or rather revive our little small talk. She, however, gave me the stink eye, shook her head and even flailed her arms around in absolute refusal to grant me just that privilege. I am not racist, but all of a sudden, I grew pretty nervous as I became aware that I was momentarily the absolute minority onsite and with that at the utter mercy of those women present as far as receiving any further information. Thank God, one of her colleagues quite evidently felt sorry for me and opened her mouth after all. Lucky me, since she talked to me in full sentences rather than just hurling incoherent word clusters at me like the other girl, no problem, I perfectly knew how to proceed from there on. - Why is it that of all places, the personnel of an airport cannot or will not, or rather chooses not to communicate with passengers to perhaps facilitate matters just a little at least? Conversation is fundamentally all there is for the main purpose of thriving human interaction per se. It very much appears to me, though that exactly that highly significant tool - language itself - is rapidly decaying these days. What a shame, we tend to shorten more and more words to just stupid acronyms, symbols or even "devocalized" stumps, sentences to an absolute minimum, neglect grammar, spelling and semantics to an extent that it just brutally hurts and lastly swallow what is left so it becomes sense- less, awkward, misleading and ultimately unintelligible. Where is this horrific decay leading us with no more (physical) books being read, no more cursive writing taught in schools and on top less and less stress put on reading and comprehension skills? I honestly fear that we as a society are on our way of gradually de- evolving and thus returning to an increasingly non- verbal form of communication. What a nightmare this is!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seelenpartner, Zwillingsseelen, ... Alles Aus Einer Einzigen Seele (II)

Seelenpartner, Zwillingsseelen, ... Alles Aus Einer Einzigen Seele (II)   - Die Dauer unserer Zusammenkünfte mit anderen Seelen mag von einigen Minuten bis hin zu einer Stunde, einem Tag, einer Dekade oder sogar darüber hinaus variieren. Das zeichnet uns grundsätzlich alle aus. Beziehungen lassen sich niemals zeitlich messen sondern vielmehr in geteilten wie gegenseitig beigebrachten Lebenslektionen und kommen durchaus auch zwischen Seelengefährten, Zwillings- und rein theoretisch auch unter Parallelseelen vor. Letztere aber treffen recht unwahrscheinlich zur selben Zeit zusammen. - Lasst mich zuerst auf das Konzept der Zwillingsseelen, Zwillingsflammen oder auch Zwillingsstrahlen eingehen. Kurz zusammengefasst, handelt es sich hierbei um zwei Hälften EIN und DERSELBEN Seele, die zu Anbeginn der Zeit in absolut harmonischer Koexistenz lebten. Selbst als wir uns als Seelen von DER Quelle an sich abspalteten, um uns letztendlich zu individualisieren, waren wir unverändert eins. Jede ...
Post a Comment
Read more
Buy small and local   Hi everybody! - Coming from a tiny country like Austria, one might assume that globalisation is just a phenomenon tailored for larger nations, but no, it has also been affecting us all across Europe. Globalisation itself is of complex nature, and even though I'm not planning to write about globalisation per se today, it somehow dictates our overall shopping behavior by bringing in more and more big box chain stores worldwide which sets the general trend for methodically and eventually putting local small family- run as well as individualists' shops out of business. In the 70ies I remember mom and dad taking us along to a wide range of stores from the baker to the butcher, the grocer's, the florist, the hard ware place, the electrician, the tobacco store, etc. What great memories our weekly trips to the market created for us. There we would hand- pick fresh fruit, produce, and other delicacies. Sometimes we would even get a piece of fruit or a carrot fo...
Post a Comment
Read more
College or no college - That's the question    Now the time is here again for high school graduates to venture off to college and university. I still, to this day, remember being thrilled and overly excited to start as a fresh(wo)man in a new place where studying would go hand in glove with partying for the next few years. I love to see every one's kids swarm out and flock together in college districts and on student campus terrains. Most teenagers get accepted somewhere even though often at second or third choice sites, but they will all have to face one and the same question which is, at what price? Unless you are granted a scholarship, three years and plus of college education costs you an arm and a leg, and if you keep going for more profound specialization, you will be in debts up your neck by the time you have got your PhD. Then what? Go and spit out job applications like a ball machine hoping that someone is going to hire you - unless of course you were lucky eno...
Post a Comment
Read more