Off and running!

I wasn't planning on starting off this blog with a rant, and I'll try to keep it toned down, but I've noticed something more and more in the last few days.

We are slowly sinking into silence.

My workplace is a good example. Two years ago we were in an old building in Old City right by Washington Square. The cubes had high walls, but even so things were cramped and the everyday office noise was an energetic hum.

Then we moved closer to City Hall into a taller, more modern building. Our cubes are smaller, and the walls are low so you can see over them, but with the additional space (and the layoffs) we are sitting farther away from each other.

The ultimate effect has been less personal space, less privacy, more communal space, and oddly, more isolation. No one speaks on the phone to anyone anymore because every conversation can be heard by your neighbors. Even calls to clients have diminished because there is an atmosphere of intimidation and a fear of making too much noise.

No one speaks to each other because where it used to be possible to hold a semi-private conversation with a co-worker, where you could go and kibbitz with those you had befriended, is now a public arena. You certainly can't go anywhere now and vent your spleen about a minor frustration or annoyance. There's no opportunity to get it off your chest, get some sympathy from another who understands your position, and move on.

We have seen the death of the office water cooler conversation, and if something is getting under your skin, now you have to hold onto it, or e-mail it, where it can be scrutinized by the IT folks monitoring the work servers.

At the end of this long day spent in monastic silence, I get to ride public transit to go home. One would think a crowded commuter train would be a good place to strike up a conversation with someone - shared experience, close quarters, that sort of thing. Unfortunately no, this is not the case. Everyone on the train wants to nap. They want to sit alone and will stack their belongings on the seat next to them in an effort to discourage anyone else from sitting there.

Even as people pour onto the train and seats fill up, those who wish to be alone will take up as much room as they can and then bury their heads in books or papers or put headphones on. The message is clear...."Don't even THINK about sitting here!"

It is not until a brave soul who really, really wants to sit down specifically requests the seat that such a person will slowly remove their belongings and make room for another body. Even as they're doing so, their face will clearly show the annoyance and indignation at being made to relinquish the empty seat. Doesn't seem to matter that the person who paid for the ticket has the most right to the seat. Possession is 9/10 of the law, and by golly, they were in possession.

All ranting aside, there is a larger picture being painted here. We are becoming a nation of isolated individuals seeking an increasingly larger area of personal space and solitude. We don't want to hear about the other person's day, or the other person's problems. We don't want to share our own daily lives with anyone else either.

This lack of personal contact and communication about the mundane has created an atmosphere that inhibits conversation about the larger issues. The dialogs we should be having about war, poverty, race, violence, peace, education aren't happening. I don't have the first clue what any of my neighbors and few of my co-workers think about anything going on in the world. Why would I ever talk to them about who might be a good leader for this country when we won't even talk about how lovely the trees look at this time of year? Or what we might be able to do to combat poverty, or violence when we won't even look at each other when stepping out to pick up the paper?

Instead, the TVs blare into our individual living rooms and individually we assess the truth or falsehood of the news reports or the speeches from Washington. There is no opportunity or desire to feed this information into the collective consciousness of our neighbors and co-workers and see how it measures up against the analysis of community wisdom. Finding out what someone else thinks might distract us from coming to our own conclusions! We are making decisions that affect the lives of us all in individual vacuums with the utmost confidence that what we've decided must be best. After all, no one else is there to disagree, so it must be right, right?

I think we've seen the fruits of these decisions and the fruit, I believe, is rotten.

Instead of having town hall meetings via YouTube or some other high tech communication device, we need to get back to having the normal, daily interactions of humanity. Saying hello, good morning, how was your day, how is your family, how about this weather, what are you doing for vacation, why don't you stop by for coffee....?

In the Gospel of Luke, there is a passage that states: He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is greater: and he that is unjust in that which is little, is unjust also in that which is greater. (Lk 16:10)

This is true in many ways. It may seem a small thing to talk with your neighbor, your co-worker, or your seat mate about the mundane, but it is these small conversations about small things that build the trust and skill necessary to talk about the larger, more important things.

Speak up, people.