My dad only knows how to talk about things that interest him.
If you tried to talk about something unique to you, he'll listen, but he is casting hooks, looking for things that would bring the conversation back to his list of topics.
It sounds horrible? But wait. Among the things that interest my dad were Greek logic, Roman history, mid-20th century psychology research, Russian literature, Dickens, John Jacob Niles, and 20th century India. To name a few.
He has no email address, no Facebook presence. For someone who taught "mass communications" (MassComm), he's uniquely unplugged. But as his kid, growing up in the '60s and '70s, I would say I was exposed to more things than the kids across the street.
I confess I'm a lot like my dad in regard to listening. The things that interest me are less historical, more future oriented. Sustainability.
Some of us who are agents of conscience find ourselves less interested in other peoples mundane problems, or in discussions about the weather. I don't share my mundane problems either. Nor does my dad, so much, except to fit in with other people talking about their mundane personal problems. He'd rather be speaking about his personal heroes, the people who shaped him, than about his ills and setbacks. We'd be better communicators if we split our time equally with everyone else in society, worrying at least half the time about things that worry other people in the conversation.
Worry comes from cognitive risk, and if you are talking to other people who want to spend half the time talking about "shark attacks", rare and unlikely fears, turned into obsessions, you are supposed to compromise. The likelihood that a sea container exported by a Nigerian from the UK is going to be burned by kids at dumps is pretty low. But if that fear, that message of export impropriety, has been marketed everywhere to everyone, a polite conversationalist will want to give it equal time... But there I go again.
Dad was really good at watching cartoons with me.
If you tried to talk about something unique to you, he'll listen, but he is casting hooks, looking for things that would bring the conversation back to his list of topics.
It sounds horrible? But wait. Among the things that interest my dad were Greek logic, Roman history, mid-20th century psychology research, Russian literature, Dickens, John Jacob Niles, and 20th century India. To name a few.He has no email address, no Facebook presence. For someone who taught "mass communications" (MassComm), he's uniquely unplugged. But as his kid, growing up in the '60s and '70s, I would say I was exposed to more things than the kids across the street.
I confess I'm a lot like my dad in regard to listening. The things that interest me are less historical, more future oriented. Sustainability.
Some of us who are agents of conscience find ourselves less interested in other peoples mundane problems, or in discussions about the weather. I don't share my mundane problems either. Nor does my dad, so much, except to fit in with other people talking about their mundane personal problems. He'd rather be speaking about his personal heroes, the people who shaped him, than about his ills and setbacks. We'd be better communicators if we split our time equally with everyone else in society, worrying at least half the time about things that worry other people in the conversation.
Worry comes from cognitive risk, and if you are talking to other people who want to spend half the time talking about "shark attacks", rare and unlikely fears, turned into obsessions, you are supposed to compromise. The likelihood that a sea container exported by a Nigerian from the UK is going to be burned by kids at dumps is pretty low. But if that fear, that message of export impropriety, has been marketed everywhere to everyone, a polite conversationalist will want to give it equal time... But there I go again.
Dad was really good at watching cartoons with me.
