Communication curtails chaos

It's no shocking matter that I love the observe people and learn about the way they work, the way they think and process information, and the way they convey this information to other human beings, therein continuing the vicious cycle. As a customer service representative in a call center for a mobile phone company, one of the top ten largest in the world, I have gotten the opportunity to speak with a never-ending array of people from throughout the United States. Of course, no one calls customer service to chat; there is always a problem at the root of the call. This has given me a better opportunity to observe people than I could have hoped (which is the only solace I get from working in said call center).

Communication is not just about talking; it covers nearly every aspect of human existence and most certainly every aspect of human development. With every new development, idea, discovery, it has to be communicated, at which time it is mostly likely further developed through communication until these developments can be communicated to the appropriate person/people. Human beings are built to communicate. Even shut-ins with which no one to communicate will communicate with themselves.

When the communication process stops, human development ceases. Personally, I have never been more frustrated than when the communication process deteriorates. It is during these times when human beings are no longer able to move forward. Those developments are no longer being made, whether in one's personal life, relationships, or even career. Nearly everyone has experienced this frustration while fighting with a loved one. Although both parties may be yelling and words are being said, communication ceases and, while the development of the fight may continue, the resolution is impossible until communication is restored. It is during times of fighting, not only in personal relationships but throughout the world, that people behave most inhumanly, due largely to the deterioration of the ever essential communication for a resolution.

Methods of communication are continually being developed. Just last year, the number of mobile phones outgrew the number of home phones utilized by United States residents, further proving that human beings need methods of communicating at all times, not just while they are at home or near a pay phone. Mobile phones are being further developed; cameras are standard on all, and now dual facing cameras allow people to communicate both verbally and nonverbally through the telephone. With the development of technology and the expansion of peoples' lives, people are becoming more detached from one another physically, and technology is relied upon more heavily in order to establish a foundation of communication that is crucial to human life.

Through watching people, albeit over the phone, certain trends occur in cyclic patterns. When customers call customer care to resolve a problem they are having with the most useful tool in their daily lives, I've noticed that, not only do I become frustrated with the deterioration of communication, but lack of communication creates chaos among normal, average, everyday people. I speak with people five days of the week who have a problem with their mobile phones, whether their phones have broken, they have no network coverage, or they cannot pay their bill and fear service interruption. The majority of the calls I receive are because, in one way or another, the caller's communication has been cut off, and their phone no longer works. Speaking with these people, I do my best to help restore their services because, truly, I do know how important it is to be able to communicate, but often as the call begins, and the person on the other end is upset, sometimes crying, yelling, cursing to the heavens, I simply think they are crazy. I think they are crazy until I work to resolve their issue at which time, it is almost as if a switch is flipped, their service is restored, and they become normal, rational, coherent human beings. It is not, in most cases, that they want to get out of paying their bill; one of their most used methods of growing and developing have been cut off. Even if the caller is to blame, being upset is understandable. I often wonder if these people look back on those conversations we had and think, 'Why was I such an ass?' or, 'Why on Earth was I crying to customer care?' but after speaking with enough people who simply have this switch flipped with the resolution of their communication problem, it is safe to say that communication truly does curtail chaos.

A cat in the window

I'm moving to Seattle in September. People always ask me, "Why Seattle?" or "Why are you moving?" and I never really know what to tell them except, "Because I want to, fool."

The other day, I was sitting in my mom's living room, and her cat was sitting in the window. Every cat I've ever known, and I've known plenty, has enjoyed doing this. I've owned cats my entire life, rarely going more than two years without one. Every time I watch one of my cats, I think about what a great life that cat has. Every time I begrudgingly walk out the door to work, I look at my cats and scoff at their easy lives. They get fed daily, they do what they want, they're protected within these four walls, and they have no responsibility. I always think, "WHY can't I be a cat?!"

It's always when I see a cat sitting in the window, watching the happenings of the outside world that I feel sad for them. I no longer envy them, but pity them. That day, my mom turned to her cat (because we all talk to our cats, so let's not kid ourselves) and said, "What are you watching out there?" and I answered, "Life," without thinking much about it. It wasn't until the minutes that followed that I did take a moment to think about what that meant. The thought that plagues me the most is that an indoor domestic cat, at least mine, have never felt wind. I'm not particularly fond of wind, but if I had never felt it on my skin, if all I had ever felt was this constant, indoor air, I would've clawed myself out of this skin by now.

Ultimately, at the end of my pondering, the result was the choice, cat or life? Sure, being a cat is easy, but you're left sitting in that window, watching life go by. You're never able to chase what you so desperately want just on the other side of that glass. We've all seen a cat chase a bug on the other side of the window, and most people laugh at this, but it breaks my heart, watching this animal that, through no fault of its own, is a cat and can't go beyond that barrier.

Yes, being a human being, in most cases, is harder. It comes with more responsibilities, and struggles, and pain, and heartache, but ultimately, it's the trade off for being able to open that door. It's the trade off for being able to live a full life. Cat owners buy their cats catnip, toys, scratching posts, etc. to subconsciously try to provide them the full lives we know they're not living.

I could certainly stay in Tennessee, where I have been my whole life. I could do well in Tennessee and eat and breathe and exist in Tennessee, but Tennessee is my house, and I'm merely a cat in that house. I long to chase the things I see outside. I long to feel the wind on my face. And that is why I'm moving to Seattle.

Grace in Small Things: Part 365 of 365

1.) Sitting in a private box!

2.) Endless amounts of support from my friends and family

3.) Breaking the chains

4.) One last time, my mom

5.) Falling in love

Grace in Small Things: Part 364 of 365

1.) Entering Greece through Athens restaurant :P

2.) Mixing and matching plates with the people around me

3.) Tom Hanks

4.) A cat that's smart enough to know how to get to the cords of the ceiling fan, even if it's by jumping on my back

5.) The mutual understanding between my cats and me that cuddling is great until I'm hot or need to move, and then it's off the bed they go

Grace in Small Things: Part 363 of 365

1.) "Twenty-ten," rather than "Two-thousand ten"

2.) Exchanging youtube videos with my nephew

3.) Seeing Joely at KMart

4.) Mom bought me face cream :)

5.) Salvaging a massacre of tables

Grace in Small Things: Part 362 of 365

1.) New years!

2.) Giving Mandi my loved ones

3.) Reacquainting with old good friends

4.) Watching reruns of Glee to tide me over

5.) Cosmo really is the best cuddling cat in the world

Grace in Small Things: Part 361 of 365

1.) Therapy through writing

2.) Tangerines

3.) Chicken. On a stick.

4.) Brian read subtitles for half of a movie out loud because I couldn't read them.

5.) Singing Mulan songs as loud as I can to embarrass the people around me

Desensitization by Screens

I realize that I hardly actually compose enough entries within this blog to maintain it, but I do like it, and those two times a year when I'm struck with something, I like that it's here. School ran me very dry from inspiration, and every uninspired word I could think up was devoted to the final papers of my college career. Nothing to write home about, I assure you.

Most of the things by which I am struck are very known common knowledge. This will be no different. This began about thirty minutes ago as I was watching a movie. The movie is irrelevant, except for the fact that there are at least two characters in this movie. Near the end of one scene, as I watched the characters on the screen of my laptop, I thought, 'Those were two real people, in the same room at some point.' Now, I know. Of course, those are real people, and the actors are still alive and well, I'm sure, but this thought struck me because I have had a lot of experience with computer screens in the past year or so.

As I've mentioned before, when I have written, I began a relationship. The circumstances were less than ideal, considering the respective geographical locations of each person involved, but it persisted through the immense aid of Skype, a computer program through which people can voice chat, type chat, video chat, etc. Essentially, and probably brutally honestly, I began a relationship with a computer screen. I had some friends suggest this computer screen was actually a sixty-three year old man in California who liked to touch himself, but I had faith in my computer screen.

A couple of months ago, I read an article about a Japanese man who married his gaming character. The article pointed out the ridiculousness of it all, but somewhere, there was a tiny part of me that understood. Afterall, I had a relationship with a computer screen. I'd have married the computer screen and been painfully happy. Of course, I always wanted more than a computer screen, but if a computer screen was what I could get, then a computer screen it was.

I've always heard it said that people are desensitized by movies and television, and, while I think this could be true, I think that it is the actual screen that desensitizes. That is why it is so easy to criticize someone on a screen, whether it is an actor on television or in a movie, or just a blogger or a poster in a forum on the internet. The screen gives the appearance that he/she is not real, in addition to the anonymity that the screen yields.

This is such a profound thought for me because I met the person on the other side of the computer screen recently. Of course, I knew this person was real, and I even knew that I would meet her, but this meeting was essentially unexplainable... which makes for bad writing I suppose, but the point is that it took time to realize that this person does exist. This person does eat, breathe, and sleep. This person has a real heartbeat. In the short days that we were together, I grew accustomed to a real human being interacting with my actions and seeing me throughout my daily life. Needless to say, it was a much different dynamic than the relationship with the screen had been.

This meeting took place throughout the course of a vacation, of course, and the Nashville leg of the vacation is over. I thought the day I dropped my visitors off at the airport, I would wake up the next day thinking that it had been a dream. Unfortunately this didn't happen. I woke up the next morning remembering what it was like to have a real human being in the same room as me. I woke up the next morning remembering what it was like to talk to a person rather than a computer screen. My friends say that I should revel in the memories and be happy that they happened, and I am happy they happened -- ecstatic, in fact, but, no matter how hard I try, those memories don't detract from the feeling that has been left with me and my computer screen.

Grace in Small Things: Part 360 of 365

1.) Left over Sprite from Sev

2.) Learning the exact equation of Avatar: 1/3 Pocahontas + 5/6 Fern Gully + 1/6 Mulan

3.) Sigourney Weaver's bad acting

4.) Teaching Armenian to Team Pie (probably incorrectly)

5.) Delivery nights!

Grace in Small Things: Part 359 of 365

1.) Being inspired

2.) Watching free movies

3.) Catching up with the older movies that the rest of the world has already seen

4.) Understanding the humor in Princess Pride

5.) Peanut butter balls made by Brian

Grace in Small Things: Part 358 of 365

1.) The little girl at Pie recognizing my bracelet

2.) Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river

3.) Seeing quite possibly the last movie of this year that I will see with Brian tonight

4.) Realizing all of my possibilities

5.) Being excited about the future :)

Grace in Small Things: Part 357 of 365

1.) Glowing from the previous weeks

2.) Sleeping in late at mum's

3.) Getting back into the swing of working again

4.) Realizing that I no longer have school as a responsibility

5.) Getting over the sadness and being happy for having the memories

Grace in Small Things: Part 356 of 365

1.) My last few hours hanging out with Araz and Sev

2.) Finally impressing Sev with food from America, made by my mum!

3.) Movies with mum

4.) Leftover sweet potato casserole

5.) Pomegranate jello salad

Grace in Small Things: Part 355 of 365

1.) Wrapping presents

2.) Finding the big red bows for Edna!

3.) Talking to Edna on the phone in Armenian

4.) Stuffing stockings

5.) Celebrating Christmas with the best loved ones in all the land!

Grace in Small Things: Part 354 of 365

1.) Alleviating really awkwardly silent, 8 hour car rides with musical run downs

2.) Cheddar cheese

3.) Watching "To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar" while finishing off the last pint of ice cream

4.) Arriving safely back home

5.) Preparing for Christmas

Grace in Small Things: Part 353 of 365

1.) Jambalaya

2.) Realizing that my aunt's etouffee really is the best!

3.) Oak Alley plantation

4.) The man who told me where gas was in the tiny town next to Oak Alley

5.) Enthusiastic concierges

Grace in Small Things: Part 352 of 365

1.) Drives to New Orleans

2.) Introducing chili cheese fries to the Aussies

3.) Realizing the similar tastes between Root Beer and Listerine

4.) The French Quarter!

5.) Beignets!

Grace in Small Things: Part 351 of 365

1.) Drives to Memphis

2.) Memphis BBQ with Beanie

3.) Nolan!

4.) His son Avery, the tennis player

5.) Walking with my feet 10 feet off of Beale!

Grace in Small Things: Part 350 of 365

1.) GRADUATING FROM COLLEGE!

2.) Beginning new chapters in life

3.) My last college dinner at Puleo's Grille

4.) Gunner!

5.) My family coming to my graduation

Grace in Small Things: Part 349 of 365

1.) Picking Araz and Sev up from the airport

2.) Grocery shopping, American style

3.) THREE different Ben and Jerry's flavors!

4.) Opryland at Christmas time

5.) Taste testing sweet teas