Life in My Years

Everybody loves good dialogue. Which is to say that everybody loves a good conversation. Name a single person in this whole wide world–go ahead, I challenge you!–whose heart and mind does not openly, or at least secretly, leap, pirouette, and whirligig at the particularly witty, insightful, or humourous, or best yet, witty, insightful, and humourous exchange of sentences between two people.

And of course, for those who are slow in the mind, by which I mean dumb, the qualification must be made clear that different people, of course, find different things to be witty, insightful, humourous. To further elaborate with a specific example, some philistines may find amateur Youtube videos to be riotous fun, while I catch myself laughing most uproariously at the many puns and ironies of Shakespeare’s tragicomedies from his “late” period.

But allow me to continue my initial train of thought. As I was saying, everybody loves a good dialogue. Here is a picture of Samuel L. Jackson in his famous scene in the famous movie doing his famous dialogue. I am posting this picture because the image is widely known and the scene is famous for its dialogue, and I’m explaining why I’m posting this picture because I think the dialogue is grossly overrated and would not like my posting of the picture to be confused with any personal admiration for the scene. It merely serves to illustrates my point of the power of dialogue.

I was reminded of this fact of human nature–that all people like good dialogue–as I was conversing with my dear friend, who, due to the rampant popularity of my blog, I shall protect by keeping him nameless. Let us just call him “Top Five”, as he is currently attending one of the top five educational institutions in the world, which, let’s face it, might as well be the top five schools in the universe. Other lists on that school would be Harvard and Princeton and Yale. Ever heard of those?

So anyway, Top Five and I were having a conversation and I realized that to make my blog more appealing to the masses, the general populous, the plebes–and I mean, of course, more appealing than it already overwhelming is–I should add more dialogue into each post. Lifeinmyears supposedly has “unlimited” bandwith, why not really test that audacious claim? Even more than it already has been, I mean. I want to stretch and test the limits of my unlimited bandwith for the same reason why God would to his perfectly (God)hand-made rubberband: just to see it stretch (and maybe possibly, but probably not, break). And if I have to stoop and add gratuitous, but always quality, dialogue in to draw more readers, then by the rubberband-snapping God, I’m going to do that.

So without further ado, here’s a little dialogue clip between me and Top Five that I think most of you — the intelligent ones, anyway — will find to be humourous, witty, and insightful:

TF: You know what I realized yesterday?

Me: What?

TF: That the only way you can ever get people to really listen to what you have to say is to let them come to you naturally and not lecture or rant or go on and on about your point of passion. I was trying to read in Borders the other day, but I couldn’t concentrate because this woman who was sitting right next to me kept going on and on in her extremely loud, obnoxious voice about exactly why America underwent the financial crisis and all the culprits and corporate problems that led to the meltdown. And even if some of the things she was saying might’ve made sense, I didn’t want to hear any of it and I wouldn’t have had the patience to actually listen because she came on so strong and was so annoying about everything that what she said didn’t matter. It looked like the woman she was preaching to felt the same way too. And then I realized that if you want people to take you seriously and listen to you, you can’t just rant, you can’t go on and on, you have to make sure that the person who you’re talking to is sincerely interested in what you have to say. As soon as they don’t seem interested, you have to stop, because then you’re just talking to yourself. It has to be a conversation, not a one-sided lecture. You know what I mean?

Me: I’m sorry, what were you just ranting about? I wasn’t listening.

–End Dialogue–

Hi-larious, aren’t I? I laughed for about 10 hours after I delivered my killer last line and now that I’ve shared that bit of brilliant dialogue in my blog post, maybe more people will be drawn to my site.

Because honestly, only four people in this god-forsaken world, and let’s face it, might as well be in the universe, has ever read this blog including me (that was an incredibly sad and depressing sentence to finish typing) and only one leaves regular comments post after post (Thanks Haley!).

Oh, and by the way, TF is actually Me and Me is actually TF in the dialogue scene above. I just switched it around for so I’d seem cooler for the dialogue. I did laugh for about 10 hours after Top Five delivered his killer last line though.