Saturday morning conversations in west philly.

After short stint in the park watching the dogs play I headed back towards my house, snapping a few pictures on the way. As I passed the “park” near 47th and kingsessing, loosely classified as such as the 20x30 area encompasses as much trash as it does vegetation, a tree growing against a cinder block wall caught my eye. This served as a perfect dialogue between nature and the expansion of unanswered civilization. Besides is was a pretty shot, let’s not get overly deep. As I knelt down to try and catch the grass, sky, and building in one frame without a wide angle lense a man holding a cup of tea bearing the image of a one hundred dollar bill approached me. Mind you I do not live in the classiest off neighborhoods and generally when someone talks to you they are merely inquiring about geta few bucks or bumming a smoke, not to mention the rash on daylight muggings in the past few weeks. This man did not make me uneasy one bit, there was a certain gentleness about him. He inquired about the shot I was taking and oddly enough posed a question about cloud computing, he honestly didn’t look the type. This led to a discussion about the prevalence of social media in our lives, and the downfall off face to face conversation In today’s society. We mused about what social interaction is becoming and how it would effect the next generation’s concept of conversation, the overuse of acronyms and abbreviations. It is indeed worrisome. Chris, as I later learned his name to bed, referenced wthe state of the union the other night, which I missed, where president Obama encouraged people to tweet him with their issues, this gentleman was not amused. We continued this line of discussion for about 45 minutes, delvinging into the symposiums of ancient Greeks, the scientific advancements of Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia, our present economic climate, the decline of society. he then shook my hand, thanked me for the conversation and walked away. We need more people like this in the world. As many of you know I rely heavily on social media, but when I take walks around town, my phone is generally turned off; in fact i deleted Facebook from it a few weeks ago, and to be honest I am very much enjoying being a bit less connected, I strongly believe it has improve my quality of life. Talk to someone this week, don’t just talk discuss our world, our surroundings, try to understand that person. It’s hard In the fast paced life we have grown accustomed to, so let’s slow down, your email can wait, the world is about the now, the physical now, not the technological now. The person in front of your face should be the most important person in that moment in time. Kids, talk to strangers, you might be surprised.