Skip the Small Talk!
By Izabelle Kwan ’24
Editor’s note: In spring 2022, Izabelle Kwan received the Einhorn Center’s Maribel Garcia Community Spirit Award for founding Big Red Heads Magazine. The publication is dedicated to building community and promoting open-mindedness, inclusion and acceptance.
“What major are you?”
“Oh cool, I’m ________.”
“What year are you?”
“Oh cool, I’m ________.”
“Where are you from?
“Oh cool, I’m ________.”
YOU WILL NEVER REMEMBER THIS NOR DO YOU CARE.
Wouldn’t you rather be talking about something that turns even a singular cog in your brain?
No?
How about this?
What if I told you there was something so rare, you couldn’t find it anywhere online. You couldn’t find any information about it in any books or movies, no matter how long you looked. You’d never encountered it in your life, and there was a very high chance that you never would. Interest piqued?
Good. I allude to….
The thought process of the stranger next to you.
Now, if the entertainment and rarity component haven’t convinced you that investigating it is worthwhile, maybe the curiosity bit will.
People are products of their experiences, and every person has had billions of experiences. While two people may have had similar experiences, no two people have lived the same life. 7.753 billion times — and counting — billions of experiences have compounded in completely unique ways to produce all the unique people on our planet. That compounds to gazillions of unique thought processes, gazillions of perspectives on every single thing — small things like the best way to cook eggs or the appropriate length for a nap, and bigger things like the definition of a true friend, whether women should have the right to an abortion (yes), and what the meaning of life is. Just thinking about it is pretty impressive. Hearing these perspectives yourself is even more so. And on a more curious level, the more perspectives you hear on different things, the more you can stretch your own thinking and the more accurate your own perspective on everything in the world will be.
Seeing as small talk is the norm, it can be pretty difficult to get to talking about stuff that actually matters. But I encourage you to break free from the cycle and be your own person. You’ve got so many opportunities to! When you’re working on a group project, stay away from boring topics such as how cold the room is, and ask your groupmate about their favorite font. At a party, ask someone how they chose their outfit.
I guarantee you, no matter what they say, it’ll be 20,000 times more interesting than if you stuck to the script and asked for their opinion on the weather.
If you’re still having trouble with coming up with stuff to ask people about, take a look at what Big Red Heads Magazine at Cornell is doing.
Izabelle Kwan ’24 is the 2022 recipient of the Maribel Garcia Community Spirit Award, facilitated by the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement at Cornell University. Read the Cornell Chronicle story about Kwan’s award.
