#1761
"Great minds
discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."
- Henry Thomas Buckle
Apparently,
no one can be shocked anymore by anything. Our senses are bombarded everyday by
things that the science fiction writer of my youth, could never have dreamed. From
the talking head newscaster, politician, pastor, everyone talks
"slivers" of solution... just chasing one thing until another comes
up.
This writer
is always listening, everyone's talking... no secrets anymore. I am told that
every living/breathing person, from the school child to the grandmother, either
has a telephone in front of their face or they are looking down talking on
their phone with their fingers (texting.) I have personally let several female
employees go because they had their eyes and mind focused on a telephone rather
than the dictation I was giving them for the computer. I went through eight
years of university training, the most difficult courses of study in the world,
working jobs at night so I could go to classes during the day. Never once
during those eight years did I ever have a telephone call from home. I don't
believe many students did at that time in our countries history. We knew the
real joy of the mail man, "letters from home." During all my years of
military service, there were very few telephone calls. The phone was for
emergency-business, not visiting. One of my friends told me that his daughter,
age 8, wanted a cell phone. I said, "You tell her that I was reared in a
time where there was only one telephone for many miles." My cousin had a
telephone at his country store. Everyone for miles used that telephone to call
the doctor, the funeral home or to get an emergency message from somewhere.
Scuttlebutt,
where the happy hour at the pool haul, the golf links at the country club,
women's mission circle at your church, was, is and will always be just scuttlebutt...
talking-visiting. Human beings are the same, the world over, very social
animals. This writer has traveled every continent, whether the desolate areas
of India , crowded streets in
Egypt ,
people talking-gesturing and body language. I was never one to waste my valuable
time in idle conversation. I was always, perhaps, too brutally sharp on the
phone. Professional people do not have time for the leisure of idle
conversation. I can tell very quickly, the future of any professional man by
his attitude on the telephone... friendly, fair, fast. I am told that every
billionaire gets there because he is fast with a decision.
There is
two things that bother me the most about people engaged in idle conversation.
If a person is sick enough to be in a hospital, the patient does not need
visitors. People coming in, spreading their germs, talking and bothering a
tired patient with unnecessary narrative.
The other,
a place of worship. The church house, the inter court is not a place for
conversation. The worst, the Baptist. Their visiting-conversations should take
place in the outer-court, the churchyard. I still like the denominations that
have kneeling benches. You come into the sanctuary and get immediately and
completely in the mode of worship. I often listen to the local Baptist church
on the morning radio. Often, there is a interlude between the radio and the
church house. The noise from the sanctuary is anything but worship. Talking,
laughing, one is a place of worship... to honor god. All attention to Christ, the cross. So many
churches no longer have a cross and the Christian service is no different than
that of a civic club, the same noise of a sports arena.
I was on
the staff of the Army hospital, fort
McClellan , Alabama St. Atlanta ,
Georgia
The history
of the world started with conversation. From nothingness to something-ness, God
spoke and the world was formed. God spoke and man was formed and the other
animals, all life with its ability to participate.
In other
articles, I have described much of my world travel, many around the world
trips... every continent... both the north and south pole. I want to bring two
places to your attention, The Great Barrier Reef, near Australia . a
1300 mile coral reef made up of bodies of articulating animals. We are told
that all around this great miracle of nature, marine animal life, can be heard
to the educated ear. Like the great humpback whales, all marine life has a language
and of course this is true with bird life near the great reef, rain island
(known for its birds, their noises.) I was in the Indian
ocean , bird island, another sanctuary. The place was alive with
their communication skills. Life would be tragic indeed if not for the SHARING
of tone sounds (music) whether in the great opera halls or in cheap radio. It
is the universal language of mankind. The letters may be different on the type
writer, in different countries, but the notes are always the same anywhere on a
musical instrument.
Talk radio
has revolutionized the world of communication during the past 20 years. It is
now an established fact that more people enjoy the different sounds-cadences
of the human voice of people talking, than ever enjoyed music. The success of a
talk show, radio-TV-platform, is completely dependent on a variety of speakers.
Words mean something, words have a way of changing the mind, changing the
world.
