Communication Rumination
Jul. 8th, 2003 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterSpent the first fifteen minutes of lunchbreak on the phone with my friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
masonk. He's currently stranded in the real world until the 14th due to an unfortunate conjunction of a family move with a recto-cranially-inverted DSL provider. It's funny how these phone conversations tend to go: you think about how you can't wait to talk to this person, it'll be nice to speak with them, and then, when you're on the line with them, all your ideas leave you and you can't come up with a darned thing to say. And then, to add insult to injury, right after you hang up you remember what you should have said!
Funny how communications protocols change over the years, along with definitions of being "out of touch." Compared to twenty years or so ago, I mean, I can communicate with him just fine. I have free long distance on my cellphone and plenty of minutes, and I get a very good reception when I call him. It's just that now my generation defines being in touch as being able to sit in the same virtual room and type messages to each other...and without that, it feels comparitively like you're stranded on a desert island. This was part of what moved me to move my computer over to my new apartment before there was even furniture there, just so there wouldn't be any snafus in getting it hooked up. (And then to go over there after work the next couple of days and sit on a chair with my keyboard in my lap while peering awkwardly down at the monitor between my legs. Ah, what fools we mortals be. :)
masonk. He's currently stranded in the real world until the 14th due to an unfortunate conjunction of a family move with a recto-cranially-inverted DSL provider. It's funny how these phone conversations tend to go: you think about how you can't wait to talk to this person, it'll be nice to speak with them, and then, when you're on the line with them, all your ideas leave you and you can't come up with a darned thing to say. And then, to add insult to injury, right after you hang up you remember what you should have said!Funny how communications protocols change over the years, along with definitions of being "out of touch." Compared to twenty years or so ago, I mean, I can communicate with him just fine. I have free long distance on my cellphone and plenty of minutes, and I get a very good reception when I call him. It's just that now my generation defines being in touch as being able to sit in the same virtual room and type messages to each other...and without that, it feels comparitively like you're stranded on a desert island. This was part of what moved me to move my computer over to my new apartment before there was even furniture there, just so there wouldn't be any snafus in getting it hooked up. (And then to go over there after work the next couple of days and sit on a chair with my keyboard in my lap while peering awkwardly down at the monitor between my legs. Ah, what fools we mortals be. :)
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Date: 2003-07-09 01:32 am (UTC)The French call this "L'esprit de l'escalier" -- the spirit of the stairway. When you have left, and descend the stairs to leave the building, then you can think of something witty or important you should have said.
You're not alone in this: I suffer of this as well. Perhaps that's why I prefer written communication (like this), because I can mull it over for a bit (and revise if wanted) before committing it.