O.O.P.S. (Only Ordinary People Sleep)

The idea of waiting until a certain to express to someone how much he or she means to you (birthday, Valentine's Day, mother's/father's day, etc) has always seemed silly to me. These feeling should be expressed everyday, although it would not always be verbal. There are two problems that most people face: expressing love and constantly seeking the assurance of being loved. The second problem comes mainly due to the the existence of the first problem: in general, people are bad at showing others that they value their time and friendship.

The first factor that contributes to this problem is the cell phone. Texting has become so popular, especially among teenagers, that it has replaced calling and verbal confrontation in most situations. People just always text. Unfortunately, when someone texts someone else while engaged in a verbal conversation with another, it makes that person feel less important because the texter's attention is diverted. Sometimes, it seems as though people choose to respond to a text while in a conversation not because the text or sender is more important, but because it is a text message, and text messages get priority over actual conversations. Does it really make sense to take your attention off the person to whom you are speaking to answer a text message from someone who may or may not have something as important to say? It seems that when a message is delivered via text, the text message gets an extra +1 and makes us want to respond to it. Why? It may be an immediate desire thing: the sender took time to write a message and send it to me, it must be important. A clear minded individual, however, would see that the quality of the sender's attention would be higher if he or she had made the message a phone call instead.

The lack of phone calls is also another problem. There was a study that showed that when normal people listen to music, they act most positively to voice, then drums, then everything else. It makes sense; speaking and beating stuff are two things that we are naturally able to do, and the reason that we react more positively to voice than drums is because we understand the lyrics (when in a familiar language). Similarly, there is better rapport made in verbal communication compared to texted based. Texting is too informal and distant. It is also very inefficient.

People who are not good with direct, verbal conversation prefer texting. However, the ability to socialize verbally is important, and avoiding having to do it does not make it better. So, texting seems to create this paradox of contributing to feelings of isolation (due to poor social skills) while seemingly bringing more people together (due to being able to distantly keep in touch with many people).

There is also no way how I could see anyone would prefer a 3 hour texting conversation over a 30 minute verb conversation about the same subject. No matter how quickly you can type, you can speak faster and more clearly.

In addition to contributing to poor social skills, something else that increases isolation is when others watch you text. Most people don't ever "sit by themselves" anymore. Whether texting or not, they will be constantly checking their phones. Maybe this is just me, but if you're on the phone, then you're busy, and I wouldn't want to bother you. I eat by myself all the time. I watch other people eat by themselves, and I consider joining them, but then I see them take their phones out. They're obviously doing something, but it's not enjoying lunch, and they're not going to enjoy lunch with me if I intrude on that.

It also really annoys me when people bring their phones to track practice and keeps using them when not running (during breaks, etc). Obviously, track practice is for running. That should be the focus. Not making plans for the night or stupid drama. (Focus and priorities - a topic for another time.)

SMS stands for "short messaging service." When used correctly, ie. the way it was meant to be used, it is actually more efficient than phone calls. "Be there in 5," or "Are you going to practice?" work well as text messages. Pages and pages of abbreviated words is not efficient. In fact, on Google Voice, if you try to send a SMS past 6 pages (I believe), instead of telling you how many pages you have, it just says, "Really?" See, even Google agrees with me.

The only reason I text, and I'm ashamed to admit it, is because mostly everyone else does. I plan to change that, although it probably won't work well considering how well our generation deals with things outside of the norm.

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Using curse words is one of the most unoriginal and nonsensical things that you can do. I'm talking about those words that everyone uses everyday, to the point where people don't even think about what the words mean anymore. Usually, these words are used to emphasize a certain feeling, usually negativity, although they can also be used to emphasize feelings of happiness too. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Actually, these words actually have origins and meanings. To use them as a qualitative adverb ("I'm so fucking sad/happy") is not incorrect (it might have been at one point, but language evolves), but it is inefficient and, to an educated ear, impeding to the mean which you are actually trying to convey. It is inefficient because it does not express your feelings as powerfully as you intended it to do.

Cursing does not express emotions or how passionate you are about something; it expresses laziness and unoriginality. It probably shows that you are not so passionate at all since you can't come up with a better word to describe it. Therefore, it seems logical that all you need to do is use a better word. A well thought out word that is relevant to the situation and true to your emotions. So, instead of, "I'm so fucking sad," how about, "I'm so disappointingly sad," or, "I'm so confused and sad." I'm thinking of someone who just got disappointed by something or someone. Here, that person has already expressed disappointment or confusion; the person listening does not have to wonder about that and has a better insight on what the speaker will say to her next.

If you just use any generic curse word, it seems to show that you're not really, say, that sad, because you're not sad enough to find a way to describe it. It is like the difference between telling someone, "I love you," and writing someone a poem expressing your feelings toward them.

I read this one snippet on the internet. It was about the difference between an English major and a Communications major. It said:

Comm. major: "What the hell is a palindrome?"
English major: "No, it's not."

I had to read it a few times, but it's really funny after you understand it.

These words work the way they do because of society. Society finds these words offensive, vulgar, powerful, and, in certain situations, forbidden. Unfortunately, many people haven't realized that most things that society does is nonsensically stupid. I honestly don't understand how people can think that cursing emphasizes what they say, especially when most people curse in every sentence anyway. If someone like me, who never curses, were to curse, and it were to people who knew me well, then that might be effective. However, just because I don't ever curse does not mean that if I were to get really emotional about something and curse while talking to a stranger, that he would know, "Oh, he never curses, but he did now. He must really mean it." However, there is no question about how I feel about something if I say, "That is so degradingly stupid."

Also, using negative words to emphasize a positive feeling just seems...also inefficient. Why not use a positive word to emphasize a positive emotion? "This cheesecake is so fucking good," -> "This cheesecake is godly good." You'd even get alliteration in that, which helps further. It only sounds weird because no one ever says it.

Think for yourself, and say what you mean by refraining from using nonsensical words.