the art of honest conversations

I feel that the art of honest conversations has died somewhere along the road. I noticed this deterioration over the years - somewhere between age 16, when knowledge was being shoved down my throat whether I liked it or not, and age 26, when I was well past the drunken college days and making plans for my future. At first I thought it had to do with age and maturity, but then I realized it had to do with people. Especially the quality of people you choose to surround yourself with. If there are way more small talks going on at random and not enough sincerity and truthfulness, then your life lacks an honest conversation. Your life lacks clarity.

Small talks absolutely exhaust me. There is only this much of superficial nothingness I can handle over and over again with the same people, who I know in my heart, are never going to be, well, “honest” with me. I used to find really fantastic people to talk to in my teenage and young adolescent years. These human beings were full of depth, perceptive and sharp by nature, witty in humor; people who knew and understood life inside out and had the same unquenchable thirst and excitement for knowledge as I did. We could discuss Beethoven, Pablo Neruda’s poetry, private family/relationship matters, the diversity of the human mind to why pigs can’t fly. Everything was done with candor, wit and honesty. And let’s be honest, these conversations cannot happen if the other person isn’t ready to receive that level of honesty. It’s a two way street. So even though a lot of us crave honest conversations, I simply feel there are not enough people out there anymore who are open to receiving it. 

Some spend a lifetime not knowing what an honest conversation is. They think they have it, but most of the time it turns out to be just an idea of what they think it is. I often associate honesty with depth. As hard as it is to find honest people, it’s perhaps harder to find those who’s life lessons, learning and adventures, have given them layers of skin and growth, made their minds more prominent and deep. The hardest is to actually speak with transparency and connect with someone like that after all that trouble of finding them.

People seem to be so guarded these days - most I have encountered seem to wear at least ten different masks in their lifetime. Why is it so hard to see that we are shackled and bound by these masks of repression? These masks will protect you but will they fulfill you? 

Everyone is protecting themselves so they don’t get judged, misunderstood, ostracized or ignored. Too afraid to make mistakes. Somewhere down life’s path, we begin to control our natural instincts until we are all the same people moving in and out of the same light and darkness, never knowing what could lie outside that morose monotony. Some are too afraid to be honest. Most are not comfortable having that level of a conversation. So what’s the point really, of waking up every morning and filling your heads with all the things you have to do in a day? Who will be the witness to your life other than you? Do we not owe it ourselves, to make those connections, to reject traditional inhibitions and submit to the raw and candid conscientiousness that we all innately possess? 

  1. noyonima-blog posted this