A REEL CONVERSATION: conversing is a bit like fishing

nerdfighters.ning.com

In a day when people have the ability to be more connected than ever, I keep hearing people claim that statistics show people feel less connected than ever before. The quick culprit to blame for the disconnect is usually technology, particularly social media and cell phones. Yet, I wonder if people would still feel as disconnected without these advances?  We really are more busy and more in contact with people today than we have ever been.  Should we feel more connected?

Technology aside and other cultural cues the same, I think we would still feel a disconnect. In our contacts with others, we  speak fewer words of meaning from our depth and soul.  We formulate agendas and checklists with our conversations rather than bonds.  Can we blame that on technology?

Think about the phrase used years ago by people, I will take you at your word.   Your words were weighted heavily; they were a buoy to who you were. They were your bond. We spat into our hands, looked into another's eyes, meant what we said and said what we meant, framed a verbal contract, and it was gospel.  If not that, then we pinky swore. Contracts and business were agreed upon verbally.   Today, our words are lightly framed in confusion, manipulation, doubt, and  indifference.  Words whether in print, in outright verbal conversation, on Twitter, Facebook, text, email, newscasts,  are not as  thoughtfully considered or received with genuine sincerity.  Today, we have the ability to express ourselves through words with a greater variety of technology than ever before.  So why the disconnect? Blaming technology, let's the user off he hook.
.
Conversing in any manner, I daresay is a bit like fishing---a hunt.  Think about how fishermen prepare for their discourse with nature.  I am not a fisherman, but I do know that at least at the start there must be bait.  If free night crawlers can't be dug up, the cheap white bread can catch the fish willing to be top dwellers.  Those victims get caught readily because they are willing to respond quickly.  At times, this simple bait lacking substance often merely falls off the hook as it sits in the water.  What response should we expect from a conversation that was prepared with  cheap, quick, easy words?  Is the quick, easy response off the top of our heads often the most rewarding or nourishing? Does the bait elicit  what the fisherman sought?  It might just be what he sought: quick, surface answers rather than delving deep.

Ah...Fancier  lures might attract more specific, elite, or specialty fish.  Some of these lures (even GPS tracking of fish) can be quite expensive. I suppose fishermen have to decide if the catch is worth the investment.  This is definitely a more advanced and intentional fisherman who  seeks an expected outcome.  These trackers can even reveal depth and size of fish.  I remember being on my Uncle Denny's boat and seeing one of these in action.  Somehow it seemed like cheating in this sport because we had an added advantage over the fish,  but the excitement did escalate with  the greater certainty of a catch.. These anglers have an agenda; they assuredly want a desired outcome. Sometimes, it feels that these more grandiose luring words could be misused  or intended to be more for show, effect, or to manipulate a  preconceived  answer. Somehow what is related can feel disingenuous.  Artificial tools and words can make us wonder if what we hear was a genuine exchange of sincerity. Doesn't the real fisherman play along with the laws of nature, not above them? However, with these more savvy lures, catching fish isn't a certainty, yet there is greater potential.  Is behooves the fisherman to know how to use these more costly tools well.   Maybe we just have to realize that our words are worth the investment and choose them well in order to increase the probability for real connection no matter what technology we use to relay them.


The art of fishing for me lies in the catch and release. There isn't a fishing for success or a desired outcome, but rather to experience a captured reverence for nature, the exchange of solitude, awe, a feeling one with nature, not separated from it, a give and take.  My hope is not  a successful kind or number of  fish but the enjoyment of the process. Fishermen capture many on some days and on few on others; little pee-wees on some days and whoppers on others.  Either way, I enjoy the fishing when these hunters carefully unhook without harming the fish and release it to its pond to only again enjoy the next flick of the wrist to release the line for more catch.  This capture and release and recast is how we  use words with others: throwing out words, being heard and seen by the other fish in this big pond, and responding to the bait as being willing to enter into a reel conversation.

I have never really enjoyed fishing.  Truthfully, I confess that I don't like  baiting the hook or wriggling the fish off the hook or seeing it endure the pain I am succumbing it too even though I don't mean to.  I hear there is a way to do that through which the fish don't feel pain. I don't like the long experience only to be excited by the fishing pole bending to a catch of unexpected trash and weeds. I don't like luring people into a conversation with dynamics and drama.  I don't like being baited in conversations.  I don't like the compulsion to have to chase down an idea that won't surface. I don't like someone fishing for an expected outcome. 


underthewagon.com
 I do, however, enjoy the still, peaceful water while watching people fish. I do like the warmth and comfort of being able to cast  my idea that wasn't quite hooked well in my head back into the water and seek to find another. I do like the  time allowed to really discover the words that I mean.  I do like the patient peace of being able to come back to the moment if nothing surfaces. I do like the treasure of finding the beauty and joy in both the small and large finds. And the weeds, I am really okay with those occasionally because I expect some of those to surface on my pole at times.  Eventually, I laugh at myself when my anticipation reveals a  hard fought for weed.

Murky or clear water, early morning or evening, sun or shine, if you are able to reel this kind of conversation, there's a keeper to be found at the end of your line no matter how heavy it is at weigh-in.  If you know these kind of fish are biting, my advice is to post the sign "Gone Fishing!"


.



Comments

Anonymous said…
Reely deep. =)
I will fish with you any day!
Anonymous said…
The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters;
The fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.
Proverbs 18.4

:)
Anonymous said…
Thank goodness you've let me 'off the hook' many a times. I would have been cooked a thousand times over. - love your sissy (P. S. - love the metaphor play...reelly hits the spot)