superficiel in depth

"Show me the money", "You had me at hello": two lines that brought the movie "Jerry McGuire" a cult status. But after I saw the movie again recently in my hotel room in the Shetlands, I picked up on another killer line: "I'm incapable of small talk" (said by Bonnie Hunt to her sister in the plot, Renee Zellweger). The simple irony of this sentence uncovers a delicate truth of social handicap. Small talk is not only a way of life, it's a powerful tool which practice through hard work can provide incommensurable benefits if not pleasure. I thought for a long time that one had to be a natural at small talking or not be one at all forever. I was wrong. It's just another social practice. I forced myself these last weeks and I realised how easy it comes and how quickly the results are showing up. Yet, I also think that it's possible to bring shortly the conversation to "another level". It just requires to open up more, to be more trusting, patient and to let the flow go past the limits that you'd set for yourself. Which in my case were pretty narrow-narrow. It's actually the moment I prefer in a conversation. When I finally find the pleasure past the weather slash what-is-it-that-you're-doing-in-life introduction that usually bores me to death. When the flavour of intimacy starts to appear and transforms a stranger into a potential friend. It all comes back to the idea that you have to take risks in life, even at people if it was just to give them the chance to be the next best thing.

-- Joëlle.