Next time you are in a group – say, with friends, colleagues at work, any group at all, it does not matter – pay close attention to who talks the most. Then try to find out what percentage of that was useful information. I can bet that in most cases, 80% of the time was hogged by very few people producing less than 20% of useful information. I am not against the talkers. Some of those close around me are. In fact they are the ones who keep a conversation going, the energy level up and the world spinning. It is healthy, even essential to have them 🙂
The problem, however, is that when the talkers end up behaving as know-it-alls. People with this deadly combination end up having an opinion on everything under the sun or even above it. They hack into every conversation with a level of conviction that even the experts in the field may not be able to conjure. Whenever this happens, the first few seconds, I am stuck just by the sheer audacity of the person and the effort it would take me to do something like that. But then I become aware of an acute pain, of watching word after word fly through one ear and out the other without bothering to disturb the brain.
These are good natured, kind hearted people who have no hidden agenda. They are not scheming or cunning people. So, I have often wondered – Why the necessity to masquerade as the most knowledgeable around. Why the anxiety to jump immediately and give an opinon? But over the years, I have come to realise that the talkers get their way, almost always, as everyone ends up agreeing with them – probably out of sheer exasperation. So, there is a motivation to do this – from their point of view. It is like a means to an end – to prevail over all. It is logical then, since it is beneficial to them.
This brings me to the bigger problem – that the society is slowly becoming an exclusive hub of the talkers – and intolerant of the other kind. If you have ever watched any show in TV these days – say ‘Super Singer’ – you will realise that you are probably being judged 50% for the singing and the rest 50% for the extra talking and drama 🙂 No doubt, this need to ‘talk’ will permeate to schools and work and so on – everybody will be pushed to be ‘open-up’ and be talkative – irrespective of whether you like it or not and inspite of whether you know a thing about it. I am in no position to judge, but all I can hope and long for, is that there will be some substance beneath all that overload of words.