Wednesday, January 15, 2014

A Rant on "The Awkward Silence"

Awkward.

It sounds so, crowy. A meaningless k between two w's. But yet, we find means to label a sudden moment of silence as awkward, without even taking time to grasp that fresh air of freedom, of listening to some more bullshit.

Yeah, swear words are not italicized!

Anyway, an awkward moment is never really awkward, or doesn't have to be. Until we acknowledge the idea and fool the brain to generate the most enormous gallons of discomfort which ultimately leads to poor social perseverance.

Take time to bask in the awkward moment, and realize that it's nothing but a moment that you branded as such.

The moment helps us recover, from an intense talk-fest of one person's word over another's, backhanded compliments, a double-standard remark and all the more of having the final word. But it is instead used for quirky little actions and sounds. Funny noises that pollute the air that they feel ashamed of, maybe a burp, or a fart that could have gotten by, midst the noise once was. Clicking their tongue, clapping hands, humming tunes for the rest of the moment that you feel almost sad not wanting to snap them out of being off key the whole time.

The funny thing is though when trying to re-animate conversation we, instead of getting to actually cherish the life out of the chance to have gotten past the discomfort, we start up again with the compliments, the word and the standards.

Yes, these are generally our aspirations of social human behavior. We have our ultimate goals in mind yes, to be the chosen one of course, but these are the little goals that keep us fulfilled for the day, you know, it gets us through all the hardship.

Don't you know you're not mass produced edible goods? The world isn't a big shelf of Oreo's you know. It's the supermarket, maybe even those little shops they have outside the supermarket, and the ATM's, and that one guy who always sells wooden musical instruments and knows how to play it enormously well while you're left wondering "Why isn't he in a band? Has he heard of a band? Should I explain to him the idea of a band and then feel great that he maybe would become a larger part of society? Okay, maybe I should just act like I don't see him."

The point is we need to look past that moment when we're not able to come up with anything interesting to say and maybe just look around and see everything that sits around us, how maybe a glint of the Sun bouncing off of a car's beautiful reflective hood, obscuring somebody's vision, silence can do a lot of good for us, it helps us collect and organize our thoughts, so that the next thing we say, wouldn't necessarily have to be just any jibber-jabber.

2 comments:

  1. It might sound akard, but I am still trying to find the right words to express my comment for this not so bullshit (it is not italicized)

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  2. Dear Surya,
    I felt comfortable when I read this post. I hope not to feel awkward from now on. Well written. Keep writing more. I enjoyed reading your post.
    Regards,
    TP Anand

    ReplyDelete