I wrote earlier this semester about the nature of small talk and how much I hate it. The article was short – the whole process of completing it took me about 25 minutes and primarily dealt with the issue in a conversational, humorous way. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on that particular piece, so I feel now that it is my job as a student-writer to ruin it – and I feel that the best way to do so is by treating the issue from an academic standpoint. Brace yourself.

Confucius said, “In antiquity men were loath to speak” (The Analects Book 4, verse 22). It’s hard to receive something like that on your computer, so let’s do a little brain exercise: put yourself with me in a beautiful Zen garden … a little breeze is running through the cherry blossoms, and you sit in front of one of those miniature little creek-bridges that you always see in Asian-style gardens. The Master sits in the middle of the bridge, legs crossed and eyes closed, looking like a Buddha sculpture. He puffs his pipe, opens his eyes and says, “In antiquity men were loath to speak.” I would bet that, were things to go down in such a dramatic way, you wouldn’t talk for a while – and maybe be a little more withdrawn in social environments yourself.

I habitually think to myself, as I walk through the dining hall, how many people look to be sitting with the people they’re sitting with because they don’t want to be alone; I can’t tell if they’re afraid of silence or they just love fruitless company. They talk about everything under the sun while not saying anything.

One of my favorite scenes from James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans takes place on a silent, starry night in the ruins of a colonial army outpost. Two Mohicans and a white man sit in front of a fire, waiting to talk about their next move as a group. A young American sits idly by and watches the event: “Notwithstanding the increasing warmth of the amicable contest, the most decorous Christian assembly… might have learned a wholesome lesson of moderation from the forbearance and courtesy of the disputants. The words of Uncas [the younger Mohican] were received with the same deep attention as those which fell from the mature wisdom of his father; and so far from manifesting any impatience, neither spoke in reply, until a few moments of silent meditation were, seemingly, bestowed in deliberating on what had already been said."

How far from this are we today? We should stand with the idle young American and learn from this fictional conversation … we talk too much, and most of what we say is stupid and unnecessary; reflections of our own illogical fear of silence and, therefore, thinking.

Henry David Thoreau puts it best in Walden: “Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other… We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war… we live thick and are in each other’s way… and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another."

I’m with you, Henry.

Come Monday, when you see me sitting alone, realize that I pity you far more than you pity me.