Pilots, Princes, & Prosaicness
“I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I am lucky. I can talk to the people who sit at my table during lunch about almost any topic. Almost. I can’t bring up Minecraft, that’s for sure. Hell no. The “conversation” would last ten seconds. I can’t talk about The Little Prince or about Catan. But like I said, I’m lucky.
I know there are plenty of lunch tables out there that are the opposite. Sports. Shoes. Gossip. Politics. Work (while at work). Reality Show #82. Cars. It’s not that I mind talking about sports, or politics, or work, I just prefer to talk about other things. I played sports throughout my high school and college years, and then some, and I loved playing them. I enjoy a good political discussion, so long as it deals with ideas, not events. But why can’t we talk about Jules Verne at lunch? Why is it okay to talk about the playoffs, but not about playing Skyrim?
“I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
You see, I can talk about those things too, and about the Hadron Collider, and about the events in Syria and Venezuela, and about work… But am I (are we) that different? I have fantasy RPGs, others have fantasy football. Both are fake. Both involve limited interaction with others. Both aren’t important in the grand scheme of things, at all. I don’t think they’re that different. But why can’t we talk about some cool blogs (Medium!) every so often? Or about the winners of this year’s ARC Salon? Is there some common ground we can talk about that we’ll both enjoy and learn from? Some insight would be great…
…cause I sure as hell ain’t talking about bridge.
