People, as a whole, (and I know I’m over-generalising here) are very good at talking. We talk about anything and everything. The weather, our favorite sports and teams, how we had a good day or (more often) a bad one, and a great many other subjects. Some people keep their talking to light subjects with little meaning while others, like myself, plunge into the depths of knowledge and reason and talk about the meaning of life and how it could be better and other equally brain melting subjects, also with little meaning.

As I sit and ponder these things, I wonder, not about how meaningful the topics of conversation are, but more of who the hell is listening to all these things being said. You see for all our ability to talk and communicate and share, it seems very few of us actually have the ability to listen to other people. I wonder if it has always been this way or is it something that has progressively worsened as we are more and more ferociously, bombarded with more and more voices from every possible angle.

We can’t even go for a drive in the country without the ever-present screaming voices of billboard advertisements and road signs. Is it our attempt to shut these voices out that have lead to us shutting out the voices of those whom we should actually want to hear. Our families, our friends, those trying to help us or those offering something that we actually want.

Maybe we should all just shut the hell up for a while and allow one voice in at a time. One that we can really focus on and listen to. A voice where we actually hear every word. We may be surprised at what we all can learn from our own silence.