Over the years I have become far less enthusiastic about conversations with others that require me to speak about myself, while I am more than happy to have conversations about things other than myself. The odd exceptions do exist, but even there I find the urge weakening.
I used to be someone who used to be really fascinated with people and what makes them tick. Age has more or less eradicated that fascination. It is really difficult, even with someone you know closely, who they are and what makes them who they are. What we think we see in a person is what we want to see.
Often, my perception and the reality of a person can be on two different galaxies. It has kind of settled down into a hazy zone where the important criterion is if that person matters to me.
That said, life being in a phase where there is precious little time for all this analysis makes this all slightly irrelevant. I could make the time if I really wanted to, but I don’t want to speak about myself and I do hear a lot about others on a regular basis.
Life itself continues to fascinate me. Where I find myself has no connection with where I thought I would be, even as recently as 5-years-ago. This car kind of drives itself, my hand on the steering is mostly my own imagination. That used to be a scary thought. Now it is mostly ‘meh’.
Snaking through episodes of utterly blinding trust, different shades of a permanent loss and the overall uncertainty of the times, a rare pause becomes a deafening wall of silence the world passively enforces otherwise.
Loud sounds eventually become only a persistent ringing in silence.