In writing this, I am not claiming to be a chat queen. I have a piece of advice from the distant past, and I’d like to share a few more thoughts.
I got this inspired by LP’s review How not to lose your mental capacity:
“I’m personally trying to get in touch with my old friends to make sure this is the last call I make. If they’re not playing games or hanging around, no one cares anymore.”
I agree with LP, though why don’t they care In some cases, this is because the person is consumed by their own activities. But there are other reasons why people behave…
An old man warned me about this when I was young. He says that when you get old, you usually have pain. “A lot of old people, they talk about it. I don’t want to hear about it,” he explained. “I have my own pain!
He says it bores people and drives people away. Emphasizing this, he preferred to never complain about his aches and pains.
I took his message to heart, obviously. Because I’ve been twisting my back for years and no one here knew anything about it. This is my baggage!
If you don’t watch yourself, you can easily turn into a litany of complaints. You call Elsa and find a dark cloud of Elsa’s problems in her place. Believe me, the calls slow down and then stop.
Nowadays, people of any age can easily suffer from one or another obsession. This is another way to “catch”. Every sentence spoken is filtered through a narrow lens. Politics is an obvious example, but there are many other ways to capture.
Unbeknownst to you, your brain has been hijacked by a trending topic. It’s not “you” anymore because you’re covered by some famous stories. You can no longer hear what your interlocutor is saying. The subject has taken hold of your mind as a cataract covers the eye. It dulls and dulls your cognitive function. Frankly, six years ago I turned off the usual political buzzwords and name calling. I don’t want to get sick.
Sorry, that’s obvious. But if you want people to talk to you, you have to be human, have your ears and the ability to consider the other person’s experience. Otherwise you will use them, which is not at all.
