IT OUGHT TO BE PERSONAL

Once again, the events of this morning have lead me to dwell further on something I've been thinking about quite a bit lately. They've all culminated together in some strange sort of chain reaction and I feel like writing about them. SO THAT'S WHAT I'M GOING TO DO.

(Begin Tangent) 
                                                                                                                              

I find it interesting how most of these (supposedly) deep posts I write always seem to start with something like "I was in my English class, and--" or "And then I walked out of my English class and I--". These classes make me think. We may be learning about Chaucer and Shakespeare but I think the true product of an education in the study of literature is the almost subconscious ability you develop for analyzing other things. For analyzing anything, really. To delve beyond the shallow pools of the everyday and wonder why, wonder how. And then to be able to communicate the products of those wonderings, be they entirely ridiculous or supremely profound, in writing. All with words and the language you learn to master in your studies. And hopefully, what you have discovered in your observations is of some worth to someone out there who needs to read it. 

That's what I hope for, at least.

(End of my Ranty, Humanities Major Tangent)

Anyways. The first day of my writing class a couple weeks ago, my professor came in, walked up to the whiteboard, and started writing a sentence. It said "Thanks for the food." Then she wrote "Thank you for the food," followed by "Thank you for the delicious food." She asked us which one was the nicest and why. Obviously, saying that the food was delicious is very nice, but even without that included, there was still a difference in feeling between "Thanks," and "Thank you." In theory they mean the same thing, but in actuality they are entirely different. She went on to talk about words and their power to shape meaning. "Thank you" was better than "Thanks" because it's personal. You're acknowledging the individual who did something for you that you appreciate.

And this struck me. It was so obvious and yet I had never thought about it before. Now flash forward to this morning.

I was at work, writing an email instructing a man to pick up some shipments that were stored at another building on campus. At the end, I had written "Thanks!" But then I paused. And I slowly deleted the word and instead typed "Thank you," remembering that day in class. I wanted to make it personal. 

This lead me to thinking about a scene from one of my favorite movies, You've Got Mail. You know, that gloriously romantic Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks 90s movie where they meet in a chat room and fall in love with each other yet absolutely detest each other in real life? Yeah. That one. Anyways. There's a scene in the movie where the two of them are discussing his big chain bookstore putting her little bookshop out of business. And he begins the scene by saying:

"It wasn't... personal." 

"What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn't personal to you. But it was personal to me. It's personal to a lot of people. And what's so wrong with being personal, anyway?"

"Uh, nothing."

"Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal."

I absolutely love that line. Especially in thinking about the world we inhabit today. Back when that movie was made, in 1998, the wave of personal technology use was just starting to become more widespread. Their computers still made that dial-up screeching noise when they turned on and the existence of the chat room was kind of a novelty. But now, things couldn't be more different. Now, everyone has a cell phone. Everyone has conversations through the use of messaging and texting. And the sad thing is that most of our conversations now happen this way. A person becomes a name at the top of a screen and not a face. We have no idea how they really react to our words and we spend hours analyzing their responses and constructing ours in return. And it has become so simple to send a message that little effort is now required to be a "friend" (*cough*Facebook*cough*).

In short, most things today don't even come close to being personal.

Young people have always been described as selfish, but I think this lack of personal connection has made us even more so. We become so wrapped up in our own heads and our own worries, talking to people most often through the use of a device, that we completely forget that there are so many people around us. It's so ironic--We've become disconnected in a world that is now so "connected." And I'm definitely not exempt from this. I've always been introverted so the draw to stay inside my head and not even think about the people around me is pretty strong.

This morning in my German class the freshman girl I was partnered with and I finished our little primitive German conversation fairly quickly, so we were just kind of sitting there. And then I remembered her saying the day before when she was giving a presentation about her family that her Mom was from Star Valley, Wyoming. So I decided to talk to her. I asked her about that connection since I had been there this summer, and we ended up having a real conversation about a million different other things and I felt like I really got to know her, as a person. (It was kind of ironic since we were asking each other personal questions in German, but our extremely limited vocabulary prevented us from actually getting to know each other. I mean, I was able to tell her my favorite color and how old I am, but that was about it.)

And I felt good afterwards. And I realized that it was because I opened up and shared some of myself with her, and allowed myself to genuinely care about her life as well. For once I wasn’t just sitting in class wrapped up in my own thoughts and feelings. And I liked it.

We walk around in a sea of people all the time—at the mall, on campus, on a busy street, and we lump them all together in our heads. We say that they're "people," not individual "persons." They’re just part of the periphery of our own story, when in reality they’re living a unique existence and story all their own. Which begs the question, why shouldn’t we treat people like they’re important? Why wouldn’t we want to have a positive influence on each person we come in contact with?  Why shouldn’t we make things personal? 

I don't know the answer to those questions. But I think that it's something we should think about.

...I realize that this is kind of an incoherent blurb of thought, but that's how it was sitting in my head. So...take what you will from that. And go watch You've Got Mail. That too.