Conversations

How much time do we spend on the fluff of life?

I'm calling to mind a conversation I had yesterday.  Someone I've known a long time.  It's one of those moments where, halfway in, you suddenly realize that your doing all the talking about things and they have revealed nothing about themselves or how they are doing - and they seem okay with that.

I understand that we don't necessarily want or need to know everything about everyone's life (although some strangers seem intent on sharing it with us), but for those that are close to us, who know us, we too often seem to spend time talking about nothing instead of the serious aspects of life.  We play at having conversations, not realizing that those who know us are better than any other at evaluating us.

Is it boundary setting?  Is it the unconscious admission that those who know us best have the ability to hurt us the most? Or is it nothing that simple, more of a simple fear that we don't want to talk about some things because we don't want to be challenged or hear words that make us examine ourselves?

Let's be fair - I'm as bad as anyone about this.  How many times have I turned the conversation to well worn gags and old phrases rather than the things that need to be said because I'm not ready to deal with something?

It occurs to me that to truly have meaningful conversations, one has to be hungry to grow.  To learn.  To become knowledgeable - about self, about others, about anything.  But one has to be hungry - so hungry to grow, to embrace excellence (not perfection of course, because we'll never be there this side of Heaven), to become the best we can be that we are willing to hear the hard words, to think the challenging thoughts, to risk coming out of the shell of preprogrammed conversations into the light of knowledge.

Are we that hungry?