GUIDELINES FOR GOOD TALK

                                                        Guidelines for good talk 

It's the quuality not the quantity that counts.

What has hapened to the art of conversation? by conversation i do not mean merely word exchanges between individuals. i am hinking  rather of one of the highest manifestations of intelligence the ability to trancform abstraction into languages the ability to convey images from one mind to another the ability to build a mutual edifice of ideas in short the ability to engage in acivilizing experience.

But where does one find good converstion these days? certainly not in the presence of the television set. No metter how rewarding bridge talk may be it is not conversation neither is chatter.

What makes good conversation? in the frist place it is essentially a mutual search for the esence of the things it is a zestful transactiom not briefing or a lecture. Russian poet Alexander Pushkin correctly identified the willingness to liten as one of the vitl ingredients of any exchange. When two people are at the same time  it is not conversation it is collison .

Nothing is more destructive of good talk than one partici[ate to hold the ball too long like an over zealous footabll dribbler playing to the crowd. pity the husband or wife with a garrulous mate who insists on talking long past the point where he or she has anything to say.

To be meaninigful a conversation should be head in a genral direction it need not be plotted bit it should be gracefully kept on course guided by unforeseen ideas.

it has been said that  if  speech is silver silence is golden certainly silence is preferable nder most circumtance to inconseqential chit chat .Why then are so many people discomfitied by the absence of human sound waves why are they not willing merely to sit with each other.