On "The Hook"

I always wonder why some people aren't terribly bored with themselves and the stories they tell. Don't they get tired of their conversations? Don't they get sick of the shouting matches, the endless one-upping, the comparison, the who's better?

The hook arose from that feeling - that there was something I just didn't get about conversations the people around me were having. Somewhere along the way, though, it clicked that it's really never been about the words exchanged - it's the actual act of competing for the better story, of getting the next word in, that really mattered.

It's the same tool, but being used for two very different purposes. And maybe the end goal is the same even; but the methodology is so different. What do the soft-spoken people, the ones like me who like to really listen and probe and ponder and have no issue with a moment of silence in service of a better end result do when they come up against the crushers of conversation, the ones who treat it as a combative endeavor? Well we often do get drowned out, or left out, or our quiet listening gets mistaken for disinterest - not out of malice or anger or spite or anything ill, but because our conversation cultures really are at odds.

It's a shame really. People tell me that I'm quiet, that I don't share enough. I think to myself that these are the exact people that don't bother to listen - what's the point. I say to them, I'm just waiting for the right thing to say, and the right time to say it.

What does it matter that the right thing is nothing, and the right time is never?