Conversations

All the current literature state sanctimoniously that listening is a quality to be cherished and cultivated. Textbooks, morals, TV shows all talking everywhichwhere about the virtue of the listener. "Ooh, I'm a great listener," brags this friend of mine, unabashedly, just having got off a sermon of a phone conversation, in which she had delivered earnest advice to this love-lorn friend of hers for, like, half an hour straight.

Everywhere I go, though, people are actually hounding the conversation and steering the flow of debate towards their ideas and liking. It's the sign of the successful human being that he ensure that he is in full control of a situation. Allowing another person's ideas and notions to cordon the conversation, I've found in my experience, is tantamount to succumbing to death.

I'm faced with a moral dilemma everytime I enter into a conversation. Are you supposed to listen wholeheartedly, submissively even, or come to the fore with views of your own, even it they're harsh or abrasive, and potentially dangerous for that matter? I guess the key would be not to have harsh, abrasive views. Also, it so happens that I'm shit scared of advancing views these days lest they be held against me or misconstrued. This happens very often, so I find my fear understandable.

Lord, help me hold my own and not get washed down under the merciless cascade of someone else's views. I beseech yous, World o' mine, let's all just work with the power we have on our own. No one needs to stomp on another person to feel a power surge. We all have power of our own. I think it ought to be enough if we cultivate our own. I don't even wanna know how this view is going to come back to bite me.

Maybe God'll sink his teeth into me today.