Americans absolutely love complimenting each other’s possessions.

Perpetual isolation of the American culture combined with late-stage (Lord! I hope this is late-stage!) consumerism mixed with poor connection skills equates to “Oh! I totally love your jacket! Where did you get it?”

One of the most common escape pathways from the perpetual isolation of being here is the question: What can I buy next?

Isolation of being in your apartment, your car, your cubicle. Your house with your fence with your “No Trespassing” signs.

Your box in the shelter, my box in the shelter.

I wonder if back in the day when slavery was common, people would visit each other and go: “Oh! I totally love your slave! Where did you get him?” as a substitute for “Hi, it’s nice to see you. I’ve been missing human connection. And I’m trapped in this conditioned culture where we have normalized holding other humans hostage and treating them poorly, so my soul is being eaten away inside out and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Oh, where did you get that hat from? It looks so nice on you.”

“Hi, I haven’t really spoken with anyone today. And all the people I spoke with, I just complimented something on them instead of actually connecting with them. So I have this deep longing to connect. But it feels scary to connect because when I was a child free of trauma, my attempts to connect were met with horror. So I’m going to compliment your hat instead.”

I wonder what it would be like to respond to one of these consumerist connection lines with “Yeah, I feel lonely too sometimes.”

I have been feeling quite fatigued with normie, American connection scripts.

The loud “How are ya?”. Followed by “Where are ya from?”. Followed by either seeking input on Indian restaurants or telling me about Indian restaurants that they like.

I was on a hike a couple of weeks ago where I had to suffer through that. Twice. Oh Lord! Save me and bless their hearts! I have some friends in the conscious community here in Asheville who pooh-pooh the notion of Jesus being a savior (“Bestie, you are your own savior! ✨”). Clearly, they haven’t experienced being one of the handful of Indians on a hike in a small American town that likes Indian food and yoga.

I would say I did a pretty solid job of nudging the conversation in a direction that wasn’t so miserable without revealing the utter agony of receiving these questions. I did a pretty solid job of that. I even felt inspired to create a piece of art—a pamphlet titled “FAQs” that contains all the usual answers I give about Indian food and yoga and Shantaram, that I carry a few copies of, on me at all times.

I played along with it long enough to feel a moment of softened heart connection with the human asking these questions instead of collapsing into my own sob story of not having a regular reliable supply of meaningful, intelligent conversation.

Which is honestly what brings me to writing often.

The unmet desire for meaningful, patient, soft and intelligent conversations where we are both sinking into something together that is surprising to both of us.

Connection between two agentic humans is surprising. That’s the nature of agency meeting agency. There’s a sense of adventure about meeting that surprise, together. As contrasted with running away from it, together. Which can feel adventurous too.

Before I recovered and alchemized my repressed trauma, I used to run away a lot. And oh my Lord! It was so exhausting to run away. I did not realize back then how utterly exhausting it is to run away. It felt exhilarating. Anxiety feels exciting when you are caught up on the hamster wheel.

I really don’t like doing that anymore.

My deep longing for good conversation often brings me to writing. To my preferred mode of writing which involves dictating voice notes followed by editing them to clean them up.

An old friend of mine who recently checked out my essays told me that they read exactly what I sound like in person. I felt so touched by that reflection. (“Stop it! I’m sure you say that to all the girls”)

I have worked really hard to cultivate my own authentic tone and style. It feels so uniquely me that no Large Language Model could replicate it. In this LLM era (which I thank the Lord for often! You have no idea what it was like to have an Indian accent that’s thickening with time and have to face voice transcription services before LLMs came onto the scene!), there are two sets of writers on the Internet. The ones who are themselves Small Language Models, who are freaking out about LLMs producing content that can replicate or even better what their conditioned minds have been doling out. And the ones who don’t seem particularly concerned about LLMs and appreciate partnering with the useful tools that they are. Especially if you are an Indian man whose sense of cultural propriety has gone for a toss after a few years of “trauma healing” and is now trying to reintegrate into normal society in a small American town that really likes Indian food, yoga and Shantaram.

It’s such a surprise to me what emerges as I set out on a walk and start dictating. Quite the surprise. I could not ever predict what the essay would be about. Often I think I’m going to explore a particular topic, but then what emerges is something entirely unexpected. And I am so grateful for that! Truly grateful. It’s an adventure with myself.

A spoken adventure, full of meaning, softness, patience and steadiness that sometimes births a demonic instructional guide on sex trafficking that makes mockery of corporate business frameworks, while preaching the Gospel and sharing my own story in a manner that truly honors the challenge of not knowing it fully.

There is something really beautiful about speaking out words aloud. It is a distinctly human gift. It is so sad that we live in an era where there is a group of humans that have been permanently pathologized for doing that and have been labeled schizophrenics by folks who are used to a certain level of conditioned order.

I don’t mean to romanticize the real suffering that comes from psychosis and yet it’s quite tragic that an entire class of people have been permanently pathologized by cultures that require tight cognitive order and expressive restraint. There is something beautiful about allowing yourself the freedom of speaking words out aloud as they arise. Their speech, when heard without fear, is radically unconditioned, associative, and alive in a way that terrifies systems built on predictability. It carries a level of surprise that conditioned language rarely allows.

And please don’t get me wrong here, I’m not just ranting against conditioned small talk. Oh no no! What’s even worse than conditioned small talk is conditioned deep talk!

The irony of engaging in conditioned deep talk is that it is seemingly an attempt to move away from the agony of small talk and yet it is quite the same shit in a different language. “How are ya?” is replaced by “How are you really feeling?” with loud exhales and an eye gaze that is just brute forcing itself into your soul and you are just tolerating it because you haven’t given yourself full permission yet to say no to things that creep you out.

I enjoyed conditioned deep talk while I was in this phase in my life where I really did need a lot of therapy and it was nice to get free therapy here and there from strangers.

Of late, I have found it really nice to talk about the weather. When I discuss the weather with a stranger, I really get to feel how the other person feels about it without the fake clarity of descriptive words attempting to reduce the indescribable nature of feelings into a few meaning-carrying sounds.

It’s such a beautiful feeling to have that exchange with someone. I get such a taste of what it is like to be them without complicated words being exchanged. Without me or them dropping into our respective sob stories. For a while, when you haven’t felt heard enough for your sob story, it’s fun to share it with everyone. But then you start seeing the complicated entanglements it creates with new people and how it can be challenging to move past it, if you lead with it. So then you switch gears and just talk about the weather, which is truly present around you at that moment in spacetime.

The most present conversation you can have with another that is the least about either of your egos, is chatting about the weather.