PFTSTA Veni, Vidi, Scripsi | Page 18

She asks me over coffee, "How can one distinguish when people are actually listening instead of just waiting for their turn to talk?"

I shrug and tell her that I have yet to meet a person that could tell the difference. In today's world, a lot of people have seemed to master the art of pretending; you kind of have to in order to make it in the "real world”. Survival of the fittest is what people like to call it. If you fail to adapt, natural selection just knocks you out. The world moves on to the next person. There's no time to waste mourning over a pile of rotting bones when there's plenty of more skeletons waiting to take your place.

"It bothers me that conversations these days are, more often than not, meaningless. Small talk is filled with enough baloney to make a sub! People seem to talk for the sake of talking. The words flying out their mouths are nothing but combinations of empty letters."

"Politeness has become another form of intelligent programming. I find it hard to believe that some people actually care about you. I wonder what would happen if the next time someone asks me "How are you?" And I reply "Not fine." Would they bother to investigate further into the matter? Or would they brush it off with another "Sorry, I hope you're better off next time."'

I nod in agreement.

11 12

A World Filled with Nothing but Noise

Tran Nguyen-Phuong