Guys don't talk

Got a call from an old friend, we used to be real close. So goes the old Billy Joel song. Happily the two friends I'm about to discuss, while both indeed being old friends (I feel I've accumulated a lot of those and that's a good thing), we're still close and see each other regularly. This is more about the phone calls.

They both called me over the weekend. They both called just to talk. So we talked, and both conversations were pleasant. But I want to stress that they had called respectively just to talk, just to pass time. What was odd about it was, well, guys as a rule don't call to talk.

Think about it. When a guy uses a phone it's almost always for information purposes. You busy, how about breakfast? What's our tee time this Saturday? Can I borrow your rake? Is your internet out? If they're still working they call other guys about work related stuff. Guys don't call to chat. They call to find things out. They may well talk quite pleasantly at breakfast or on the golf course. But they don't use the phone just to talk.

I do believe this shelter at home thing is affecting us guys profoundly.

Talk is cheap

There are many things which no one seems to oppose. We're all for peace, correct? Education? The environment? Observing the Golden Rule, perhaps, if such references are not too religious? Yet so often these claims ring hollow. They must, you see: for peace and education are just words. By themselves, they really mean nothing.

It is critically important that we bring up and discuss the questions which must follow these words if our actions are to mean anything; indeed, if the words themselves are at some point to be of value, of good use. We must ask: peace under what circumstances? Peace for whom? Because of course peace in the sense of a lack of war was very useful for Hitler yet a rather poor mantra for Czechoslavakia.

Simply put, the next time someone asks you if you are for peace, or education, or the environment, ask them relevant questions before you answer. Ask them, peace under what conditions? Education to what purpose and in what manner? The environment for whom and how? Before these issues are addressed we have nothing but a shallow and insipid pool of vacuous semi-thought. Yet afterwards, we may actually accomplish things.