I had a conversation with myself the other day.
I suppose it was rather a reply, since a conversation tends to be an intelligent (usually) passing of multiple sentences from altering parties. Perhaps it was out of loneliness, perhaps it was merely a retort, but my self-reply was absolutely one hundred per cent automatic. I was taken aback when it happened, and the more I thought about it, the more mortified I was it had occurred. Now, it certainly was not much, but to me it was the beginning of a snowball down a mountain. While working at the bakery, I served this gentleman a baguette. Or was it a wholewheat sourdough? Potato? Fuck, I can’t remember. He was a quiet man. He did not speak loudly, nor did he say much; I had to lean in on the counter to hear his requests. As I handed him his change back—$.25?—I also said my (or rather ours, as in humans) signature “have a good day.” He walked out. He said nothing. I said, “Thanks, you too.” My boss looks at me and smiles. He assumed I was sarcastically sneering the customer, when in reality I answered myself.
As work continued, I noticed what had happened and began contemplating it. Of course it is not much, hardly anything worth noticing at all. But why had I answered myself? Am I such a slave to the continuous routine of hello-goodbye that when one member of society performs even the slightest out-of-habit action I am thrown off-guard and forced to humour myself? I was not upset by his lack of response, I don’t tell him to have a nice day for the sole purpose of hearing it back.
Human beings are blessed with the ability to think quicker than words can escape our mouths. We can actually think of the what we want to say before opening our mouths. But as the days go on, as we grow older and accept the community for what it is, we begin to let ourselves go. Our unique contributions to society begin to dwindle down until we are no longer in fact contributing, merely reiterating. We’ve been brainwashed into saying certain things so our lives feel like a rehearsed theatre production. Imagine being in a play, stating your line “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” and then the response is “Elephant testicle!” Just how dumbfounded and taken aback would you be? Entirely thrown-off. Things are a certain way and the follow-up is expected to be another such way. We’re just not thinking any more, it is automatic.
Imagine. We know each other. When we pass one another on the street, we greet each other with a, “Hey! How are you?” “I’m good, thanks, you?” “Oh, good thank you.” We move along. But you don’t really want to know how I am doing, do you? We have all been in that situation where you, as per routine, say to someone, “Hi, how’s it going?” and they open their mouths and you are discomfited by their enthusiasm of quite literally telling you how it is going. Be it about the pain in their lower back, the ‘great’ movie they saw last night, the runaway cat…
“Hey, how you doing?” has become such a thrown around phrase that it is now weird to not hear it. Or it is rude. Have a nice day. Fuck off. We need to reinvent the way we verbally communicate with each other, and start speaking with importance and conviction, where every word counts. How interesting would that be? Where we genuinely say what we mean and mean what we say? Where “yes” means yes, “no” means no, and maybe is used in its meaningful tradition of “perhaps,” “possibly,” or “it could be?” Could we live in a society that truly admires the choice of wording that is used, and stands behind it? Where urhm, uhm, uh, like, so and y’know? are nonexistent, where we speak with certitude and speak of notions that want to leave our lips…
Utopia comes from the Greek word οὐ, “not”, and τόπος, “place”, indicating the concept was allegory and was not considered such an ideal place to be realistically possible. The English homophone Eutopia, derived from the Greek εὖ, “good” or “well”, and τόπος, “place”, signifies a double meaning. Utopia is a perfect place that cannot exist. My Utopia is a place where speech has significance.
I now say “don’t get hit by a truck!” as people leave the bakery.
Written 9 Sep 10 @ 10:00am