Hi y’all,
On the importance of sensibility, empathy, and genuine human warmth, we must always strive to realize it in our fellow humans. This is vehemently taught and told to our ebullient and naive souls in kindergarten, and scarcely repeated through life. It is lost when we face the daily struggle and eternal ambition. Look around, and you will find very few who hold the thought truly sacred and uphold it in moments of need. I cherish those people the most, for they seem to be the harbingers of the most important sense and sensibilities of the times. Zeitgeist is a German word that symbolizes the spirit of the times. I wish there was a word that symbolized — the sense and sensibility of the times.
I have often had this thought regarding modern-day habits. Habits that have been introduced to society in the last decade, these habits we received no formal training or teaching for! Texting
For the longest period in human history conversation involved only about 4–5 acts — Talking in person, Mailing in letters, Secret Messaging through radio and telegraph, sign language, and Braille!
Emails were added about 2 and a half decades ago, Texting probably a decade?
Given the predominantly professional nature of emails, they mostly followed the tradition of letters. However, for texting, we didn’t have a path previously trodden on.
I bring this up because I feel, we collectively should observe and respect the utilities and limitations of this tool.
OPINION INCOMING — texting should only be used for objective conversations, ie information-based exchanges. For more subjective conversations, ie conversations that are laced with emotions or explanations, which are potentially heavy and require sensitivity should at all costs be avoided on texts. Talking in person or by phone should perhaps be the mode of conversation when it comes to those intricate topics.
Resorting to texts for deep topics generally takes place due to the following reasons -:
1) Ignorance — Few folks simply do not know about this nuance. Regular frivolous conversations with friends delude us into thinking that the entire world is our audience and completely understands our subtexts. I’d go so far as to say it is unworldly to expect even close friends to expect all the subtexts all the time. Tonality goes hand in hand with intent, the problem with texts is — our tones ring in our heads, and the receiver cannot be expected to get the same. An example is — “DUDE Fuck off” spoken with a gasp and a lighter pitch at the end, is seen as innocuous, whereas — on text, the receiver is likely to assume his/her tone and take offense.
2) Lack of time — Often, people feel the need to convey everything all at once without much deliberation, without getting themselves in the appropriate state, or without proper articulation. In all such cases, it is better suited to wait for the opportune moment and still do it on call or in person. Deep, sensitive & intricate thoughts should anyways be done with care. If you do not have the time to be sincere or precise with it, don’t do it on text. A simple reason is this — TEXTS are indelible, they stick. Once a text is sent, it stays as is for eternity. The receiver always has the opportunity to come back and be affected by the same. We should probably keep this in mind.
3) Non-confrontational preference — If the person you are dealing with does not respond well to conversations and has the tendency to hurt verbally or in writing — they prefer chatting on texts.
I generally follow these rules of thumb, which I have found helpful -:
1) If a text is positive — send it
2) If a text is informative or objective, ie has a date or a number , basically is an unambiguous info — send it
3) All other cases — don’t send(mostly)
Most importantly — criticism or rejections or even words that might be construed negatively are the most delicate of engagements. A lot of people fail to do it properly even in person — this should be avoided at all costs from being texted.
Lemme know what you all think!
WHY THE FUCK DID I WRITE ALL THIS, HAHAHA
That’s all for today folks!
Regards,
Anish