Reflected thoughts about life and death, and in between

1. Tomorrow, we will meet our students in an extradordinary time. I know I must sharpen my listening skill because everybody has a story to tell.

2. Today I took pictures of newspapers headlines that has something to do with Ondoy. I was not able to read newspapers for several days because we are busy cleaning the house.

3. A co-teacher of mine said that he plans to take a housing loan and have a three floor building for his family's use. He is damn tired cleaning his house when flood waters reaches his abode.

4. Some people do not want to revisit the past because they have felt that it can be a burden to them.

5. After Ondoy's wrath, any heavy rain we will be experiencing will be communicating to us to listen to its fall. I pause and listen and time the length as to its downpour.

6. True, Ondoy devasted a huge swath of land, it has made a deeper impression to the consciousness of people who have been affected by it. Our contours of thinking has drastically been altered when rains fall even a gentle one.

7. People should be demanding to their government accuracy of weather reports, which means PAGASA should have the necessary instruments at their use.

8. Our memories are the places that we inhabit at will. We can go in and out of it. We can learn from the import of its joy and pain. It is a special place. To some it is a sacred place. I think, this is the reason why it is important that we remember.

9. Night bath, a good book by Randy David, a night to sleep. This is what I need.

10. At last you are married to your spouse, in due time your will realize "You cannot escape your in-laws".

11. In our modern society the mind will constantly seek its own home. Some say it is a "homeless-mind". Others, will rest in the comfort that the mind is a perpetual seeker. Thus, it wont find a home of its own.

12. There is no (magician) to be discovered in yourself. You have to create that (magician). That requires new imagination about your life, new strategies, new vocabularies and metaphors.

13. Typhoon Ondoy brings out the best and the worst in us. We saw the see of humanity volunteering to help the flood victims. On the other hand, refugees vandalized a school and a report that some robbed the students when the school opened.

14. According to BBC weather report, we will be experiencing sunny days up to Wednesday. I will now have time to clean our concrete slab and apply elastomeric paint.

15. Photos are being dried at the roof. Some photos are now relegated to a tearful goodbye. I simply can't reconstruct them. It's totally destroyed.

16. Do you know the value of those photos that have been washed by an un-welcomed typhoon? God, its priceless.

17. With those photos gone, my memories about them may go with it. It unburdens me with the past but my grand daughter and the generations that will come may be burdened by such a loss.

18. Mr. Rod Stewart, of the Great American Songbook, is now entertaining my evening as I type my postings in this little box of significance.

19. Sorry if I am not responding to request on remembering my birthday. I am off the calendar and I dread high numbers these days.

12. Our concrete slab that acts as our roof is now painted with elastomeric elements. We are now planning to have the second floor fixed for habitation. In case of another Ondoy type we have a place to evacuate.

13. Night is for sleeping. And we value it for what it is.

14. "An Inconvenient Truth" communicated by AL Gore, the media, and other scientists brought to us an understanding of global warming. The recent typhoon that visited us surely says that the weather we are experiencing will never be the same again.

15. I just finished re-tiling part of our living room floor. It is a social labor.

16. "Work is a slice of your life. It's not the entire pizza" - Jacquelyn Mitchard

17. "Few things move as quickly as the future" - Bern Williams

18. "Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them." John Updike

18. "Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away." - Tom Brokaw

19. "It's never too late for a happy childhood" - Gloria Steinem

20. "Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything". Alexander Hamilton

21. We can't live in the past because the present is a daily offering. It should be lived now.

22. "All of us have something to gripe about, but for how long and to what extent will we be trapped in it?" - Ernest Tan, How to atttract love.

23. There is also this human possbility to be able to care, love and be with others. It also promises the possibility to enjoy them.

24. I will be having a Magic for Beginners seminar this coming Saturday 24th October from 10:00 to 5 pm. Interested please ask for details. It will be held at our house at 137-B. 20th Ave. Quezon City. Near Ali Mall.

25. The language of love may not be in the words that you read, rather in the actions that you see.

26. When a person informs you that he/she has changed her number, that person is making you a part of his/her world.

27. School graduation is a modern idea. It is an idea of a life transition that is shaped by a high value on knowledge. There is a time in human civilization that ignorance is the better value than knowing. Hundreds of years ago there is no sense for the vast population to be going to school. Theres no need.

28. Our lives is a constant project of overcoming.

29. Not all overcoming can be good to our life. Sometimes it brings us to more troubles. Remember some people who wants to overcome the raging waters of Ondoy?

30. "What is important is that a recollection of the past should always strengthen rather than weaken one's resolve to face the future." - Randy David, sociologist.

31. Still I find Noynoy Aquino to be a stranger to me. Except that he is the son of Ninoy and Cory and that he is a senator. He seems to be in the background and cultivates public invisibility. His giant parents continues to overshadow him and this is a problem he has to overcome. A proclamation to run as a president is different from the actual accomplishment done in the past.

32. When I post my ideas in this portal it is open to be attacked or supported by readers. Some can make a comment on it.

33. Please do not put my birthday on your calendar. I don't do birthdays today except when I am performing a magic show.

34. A mystic (then) asserts in the first place that knowledge is not attained only by the senses or the intellect or the normal processess of consciousness, but that the highest is attained, and can only be attained by this spiritual sense of intution. - A mystic statement.

35. From a mystic, "God decided to make our soul-spirit its home."

36. When I am hurt, I always withdraw to a place of my own, being alone, feeling the pain, writing about it. Somewhat, I am thrown in a place that is strange to me, trying to know the fabrics and contours of that place to that I will be able to communicate with it.

37. Some people give lame excuses for not showing up as promised. Then you tell yourself that you are not like that. That shapes your behavior in the future.

38. I performed a magical show last 20 September at the Center for Migrant Youth at East Fairview QC. This is the residence of Fr. Ben Villote, a long time and very good friend of our family.

39. From a boyhood friend of mine who posted the following: "I believe in miracles. I see a lot of stupid drivers on the street. It's a miracle they are still alive and to have even passed the driving tests, sheesh!"

40. Still working on my 55 canvass just like a work of art.

41. Nice to have known May Sarton from York, Maine. She opens door for me. She is a poet at Eighty.

42. But May Sarton passed away in 1995 of cancer at Maine. She has published lots of books. I am now reading her book, Poems, Coming into Eighty.

43. The first duty of love is to listen. - Paul Tillich

44. The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory but progress. Anonymous

45. Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous human interest in what is being told us. - Alice Duer Miller

46. What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten and replaced by a new dish. - W. H. Auden

47. "We cannot love that which we do not understand. We can't protect that which we do not love." A quote from an envronmental activist.

48. "Day begins. I only have my body. Aching from comfort. I wait, for some kick-starting-mechanism. Be they hunger or purpose, relief, a job to do. Or, a wife's call for coffee".

49. "A day can be laid out like a canvass. What work of art shall I do today? How shall time wrap me with it sweet and bitter embrace?"

50. "Without music, life is a mistake". - Friedrich Nieztche

51. "Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd preferred to talk." - Doug Larson

52. Of course one of the modern addictions that we are developing and spending most of the time is our engagement with Facebook. In the post-modern paradigm face-to-face encounter will be valued highly.

53. I am happy because we have a country, whatever its in there.

54. "Day begins. I only have my body. Aching from comfort. I wait, for some kick-starting-mechanism. Be they hunger or purpose, relief, a job to do. Or, a wife's call for coffee".

55. A soldier will always believe in the just cause that his country is fighting for. But when his leaders are the one that becomes a traitor to the country it is time to switch the direction of the gun.

56. Still many of this night are rabidly running away from their real problems, that they feel, they are being consoled and comforted by their own nightly distractions.

57. Any event that happens, that has been decided upon, will have their own ramifications in the future. That is inevitable.

58. Humans will always be living in a society far from its satisfaction. This is why we have religion.

59. Without love, our souls would be likely a dried prune.

60. What is achieved when we experience pain? We learn how to experience it alone.

61. The strength of belief is in the belief itself.

62. A politician will now have to struggle in plugging the holes in his political life boat. It will take sometime to undo a decision that is within a web of relationship. Given the present political contour, such a decision will be judge if it is foolish or wise.

63. Dreaming, sleeping, eating, procrreating, these are the myriad activities our ancestors engaged in. To this day, we are still doing them.

64. A faith can be overwhelming eventhough it disregards the truth.

65. The reason why corrupt officials are likened to crocodiles is that crocodiles did not change for the last million years. They will continue to be so for the next million years. Their predatory tactics will still be there practiced highly.

66. We are shaped by the truths that we live by, not knowing those truths may well be un-truths.

Charity show for you.

Announcement: We are a group of magicians, professionals and amateurs. Out of our goodness, we want to pay back society by giving charity shows for your event. At this time we are accepting invitations from hospitals for their children's ward. Keep in touch for details.

On Human Dignity

On Human Dignity

by Jonathan Granoff

The human being has the capacity to demonstrate that which is most worthy of praise: the indivisible unity of being. It is realized through the divine attribute of love. The expression of this capacity is through intrinsic dignity, realized through the nurturing of inner character and the kind of knowledge that emerges from that effort, which is often called wisdom. This uniquely human capacity leads to the clear perception of the inner connectedness and inter-connectedness of all life. It manifests as ethics based on the Golden Rule.

The aspiration to our highest calling -- as a unique creature capable of knowing our uniqueness as well as realizing it -- should not be ignored. In this modern age, cynicism toward higher ideals is like a cancer. We hear so much about man as a beast and the great value of seeking the "bottom line." An appropriate bottom line is found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which asserts our common humanity. Below that is where the law of power tends to overtake the power of law. When individuals allow power to overtake the rule of law, personal tragedy is the result. Human respect is corroded and relationships deteriorate. When societies seek power over respect for humanity through the law, war and tyranny ensue.

When nations pursue the Golden Rule and treat other nations as they wish to be treated, peace and prosperity result. When they pursue the quest for ultimate dominance, chaos always follows. One only need compare the result of post-World War I's punishing process and its results with the success of the post-World War II's Marshall Plan and the creation of the UN system.

I am not positing that the world can become heaven easily. I am proposing that when we follow the Lord's Prayer, which calls us to aspire to do God's will here on earth, much goodness results. It is also true that when too many fail to honor the calling to do good works, enormous suffering results. And what we never know is how our own personal commitments affect the whole. What we can know, however, is how such personal commitment affects us. This knowledge is based on experience rather than on doctrines.

We can never aspire enough to our personal highest potential, which might not have a limit. As it partakes of the divine, it certainly cannot be measured or quantified. But, then again, neither can self, consciousness, soul, or conscience. Only objects can be measured, not that which knows them.

We need not bemoan the fact that in our time pursuing the highest ideals, where dignity shines in sacred beauty, is not treated with appropriate respect. One need only look at the trials and tribulations of Socrates or Jesus to remember that those who honor truth above all else might stimulate the most undignified conduct by many. Yet Jesus reminds us that we can forgive all wrongs and preserve the greatest treasures of the spirit. Socrates knowingly gives up his own life fully aware that the law has been misapplied to his individual case but is nevertheless well worth respecting since it is an institution necessary to guide the conduct of many. He gives up his body because he has found something far more precious, the profound presence of divine love for the benefit of others. His actions manifest the presence of the sacred infinite mystery within the finite world.

Can we all attain these standards? Who knows? Can we strive to emulate them? Why not? Both of these men encouraged all to follow in their ways. Both asserted the presence of capacities for human dignity we all too often forget. I had the privilege of seeing this level of dignity in our time and thus have the responsibility of sharing it with you.

I was in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, in 1974, and it was a very hot day. I was sitting at Bawa Muhaiyaddeen's bedside. He was very old, and his ashram was made up of a cement floor, a corrugated steel roof, and a courtyard ten yards from his bed with a variety of animals. There were goats, peacocks, dogs, cats, and a deer that had followed this gentle Sufi out of the jungles when he entered society to teach. I was struck by how the deer was always attentive when Bawa would sing and pray.

Bawa's day consisted mostly of sitting on his bed and giving advice on understanding the wonder and beauty of God. Because he was respected as a living saint, people attributed many things in their lives to him -- both good and bad -- sometimes, things that should not have been blamed on him.

One day a fellow came in absolutely shaking with rage and hatred. I was sitting right by the bed, and the man pulled out a short machete, the kind that one uses to cut bamboo. He was screaming. I understood that some tragedy had befallen his family and he was blaming Bawa. I was close to him, close enough that I could have sucker punched him. He wouldn't have expected it. He would never have seen me coming. But I thought, no, it's not for me to step in front of this sage. I'm here as a student, and it's not for me to intervene.

You must understand the kind of love that Bawa Muhaiyaddeen generated in me, so this was a profound position that I was in. But I knew, deeply, that I wasn't supposed to do anything. I was to watch and not engage.

Bawa attributed all beauty, goodness, wonder, and the miraculous events that happened in creation only to God. He never centralized any events on himself. He did not use miracles as a way of promoting wisdom. He promoted the supremacy of love and the knowledge of the nature of consciousness as the pathway to human realization.

Now Bawa opened his arms fully wide. He had no shirt on, and he leaned his head backward, exposing himself fully to this flood of violence. He looked with the most melting eyes of gentleness at his assailant and said, "My Brother, will taking my life give your soul the peace it is seeking?"

It was as if the molecules in the room began to scintillate and vibrate with the power of love. That love just filled the space we were in like a tangible presence, and the man with the machete became like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He collapsed on the ground and sat up gazing deeply into the sage's eyes. Bawa then embraced him with such kindness and motherly absorption, and said, "Go home and clean yourself, and come back, my child."

I bear witness to having seen somebody respond to ultimate violence with no concern for his own life but only for the well-being of the attacker. I saw the power of divine love in this world in action.

I learned the value of a true human being.

I am sharing with you a secret he told me: "If you treat other lives as your own life and live within the resonance of God's compassion, wisdom will dawn and you will know yourself. If you know yourself, you will know that God lives in you and you live in God."

A person with such knowledge shines with a light that guides others even without speaking. They do not protect the grace of God for they have surrendered themselves into God and reside knowing that God protects them. Thus, they express the grace of God as part of their own being. Such an expression is a unique human potential and the ultimate ground of human dignity.

For generations people who have attained this level of realization have been admonishing all who would listen to see the human family as one and to respect the mystery and sacredness of life. In this modern age -- when our reach is extended through science and technology to the point where we can shred the very fabric of the web of life by following the excessive quest for power through nuclear weapons or through greedily irresponsible business practices that hurt the environment-this admonition has become an imperative.

Persons who have chosen to pursue the secret inner treasure upon which real value is based are capable of presenting a different route. This route is based on nothing new or old. It is based on living to know and honor the Creator of the indivisible unity of being through the attribute of love. A life lived in such a fashion is resplendent with dignity. May we live to know this.

Jonathan Granoff is an attorney, author, and international advocate who emphasizes the legal, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of human development, nuclear disarmament, peace, and security. He is president of the Global Security Institute and a member of the National Advisory Board of the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

Reflected thoughts about life and death, and in between

1. Religion is not suppose to answer all the questions we pose about life, rather, it should give us the courage to answer them.

2. One of the strategies that we are going to employ is to finish our second floor area. Another is to prepare sandbags.

3. My main fear was to be caught in our house with rising flood waters. Thus, i sent an SOS to my friends in the Barangay office and in 15-minutes they plucked out my daughter, granddaughter and our assistant house manager. That event stabilized my mind.... I have to keep my feet dry and eat our lunch at the second floor. Lucky, I have my nephew around to help me out and both survive.

4. I do not think we can curse typhoon Ondoy. At best we could harness our energy to survive this event. Typhoon Ondoy do not recognize a name, a village, or a valued status.

5. One of the learning that people affected by flood, and they are around .5 million of them is that thought that a second floor will protect them from the next coming flood.

6. After Ondoy, when the accounting has been done, when the garbage has been thrown out, when things are back to "normal", will it be business-as-usual?

7. We just had our Post traumatic de-briefing session at Miriam College. I like to thank Dr. Roni Motilla, Dr. Grace Evangelista, the Guidance and Psychology department. It helped me a lot in dealing with my feelings and setting goals post Ondoy's ...whims. I think this can be cascaded to the barangay level.

8. My grand daughter and I will go to Ali Mall and SM Cubao, for our post-traumatic session due to the floods that hit our house here at 20th Ave.

9. We are now planning to have our second floor an added roof that will act as a laundry and sun-deck, evening view deck ( I hope to buy a telescope to see the stars closely), and of course an evacuation area in case a new Ondoy type of typhoon will come.

10. Today I took pictures of newspapers headlines that has something to do with Ondoy. I was not able to read newspapers for several days because we are busy cleaning the house.

11. A co-teacher of mine said that he plans to take a housing loan and have a three floor building for his family's use. He is damn tired cleaning his house when flood waters reaches his abode.

12. Some people do not want to revisit the past because they have felt that it can be a burden to them.

13. After Ondoy's wrath, any heavy rain we will be experiencing will be communicating to us to listen to its fall. I pause and listen and time the length as to its downpour.

14. True, Ondoy devastated a great swath of land, it has made a deeper impression to the consciousness of people who have been affected by it. Our contours of thinking has drastically been altered when rains fall even a gentle one.

15. People should be demanding to their government accuracy of weather reports, which means PAGASA should have the necessary instruments at their use.

16. Our memories are the places that we inhabit at will. We can go in and out of it. We can learn from the import of its joy and pain. It is a special place. To some it is a sacred place. I think, this is the reason why it is important that we remember.

17. Night bath, a good book by Randy David, a night to sleep. This is what I need.

18. At last you are married to your spouse, in due time your will realize "You cannot escape your in-laws".

19. In our modern society the mind will constantly seek its own home. Some say it is a "homeless-mind". Others, will rest in the comfort that the mind is a perpetual seeker. Thus, it wont find a home of its own.

20. There is no (magician) to be discovered in yourself. You have to create that (magician). That requires new imagination about your life, new strategies, new vocabularies and metaphors.

21. Typhoon Ondoy brings out the best and the worst in us. We saw the see of humanity volunteering to help the flood victims. On the other hand, refugees vandalized a school and a report that some robbed the students when the school opened.

22. According to BBC weather report, we will be experiencing sunny days up to Wednesday. I will now have time to clean our concrete slab and apply elastomeric paint.

23. Do you know the value of those photos that have been washed by an un-welcomed storm? God, its priceless.

24. At last you are married to your spouse, in due time your will realize "You cannot escape your in-laws".

25. In our modern society the mind will constantly seek its own home. Some say it is a "homeless-mind". Others, will rest in the comfort that the mind is a perpetual seeker. Thus, it wont find a home of its own.

26. There is no (magician) to be discovered in yourself. You have to create that (magician). That requires new imagination about your life, new strategies, new vocabularies and metaphors.

27. Photos are being dried at the roof. Some photos are now relegated to a tearful goodbye. I simply can't reconstruct them. It's totally destroyed.

28. Sorry if I am not responding to request on remembering my birthday. I am off the calendar and I dread high numbers these days.

29. It breaks my heart when I found out the submerged photos of the past. Its done and over with smudges and prints that can't be recognized. I may just depend on my aging memory to recall what can be recalled.

30. Our concrete slab that acts as our roof is now painted with elastomeric elements. We are now planning to have the second floor fixed for habitation. In case of another Ondoy type we have a place to evacuate.

31. I just finished re-tiling part of our living room floor. It is a social labor.

32. I just finished re-tiling part of our living room floor. It is a social labor.

33. "Work is a slice of your life. It's not the entire pizza" - Jacquelyn Mitchard

34. "Few things move as quickly as the future" - Bern Williams

35. "Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them." John Updike

36. "Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away." - Tom Brokaw

37. "It's never too late for a happy childhood" - Gloria Steinem

38. "Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything". Alexander Hamilton

39. "An Inconvenient Truth" communicated by AL Gore, the media, and other scientists brought to us an understanding of global warming. The recent typhoon that visited us surely says that the weather we are experiencing will never be the same again.

40. Night is for sleeping. And we value it for what it is.

41. We are one who were traumatized by typhoon Ondoy. No control, helpless from the floods. Iba na ngayong ang dating ng ulan.

42. The high point of the floods was at noon time. The sofa is now floating, pails, garbage containers followed the natural course of the menu prepared by Ondoy. Outside the house on the street level was six fee deep. We have a creek that drains the wate...r on this natural funnel that we constructed our house. Some people decided to construct a building beside it. What do we got?

43. When the clear flood waters came in via our main entrance, it was somewhat bizarre that his flood happen to me on a personal level. The floods are there but what can I do? I was sure stamped with "Helpless". Thus, instead of fighting the flood I'd let it enter to see what would happen. It is just rushing water, but it can be fatal.

44. Natural flood waters has the capacity to tilt the way to handle things. When it is your first time, you turn to become a rookie. You estimate certain decisions that you wanted to be safe but in an afterthought, it could turn out to be dangerous.

Dry clothes outside your house.

They can now hang their clothes outside to dry. Click on link below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/us/11clothesline.html?em

Reflected thoughts about life and death, and in between

1. And as you enter the realm of the public, it demands that each one should live a moral life. It is in the realm of the public that one fully realizes who one is. The private realm is merely a rehearsal.

2. The private realm is one that the problematique because it is in this engagement that you are alone to yourself, a fact that you can't escape.

3. When you write "Ah", that may mean a hundred different interpretations.

4. When one posts his/her private thoughts at facebook, remember that thought was transformed into the public sphere. Your thoughts can be analyzed, decoded, interpreted and re-interpreted. The private magically becomes public.

5. Typhoon Ondoy is an interruption to our daily grind particularly in Metro Manila. It forced us to do things that we usually do not do. Then we discover something that we were capable of. Such discovery is an exercise of who we are as a nation. This s...hapes our collective self at a particular juncture of history.

6. Nature has no word if this is a tragedy or not, it simply dumps water that you have not imagined in your life.

7. Sometimes it is harder to believe that everything happens for no reason at all!

8. "More dreams die because we fail to seize the moment. Do it now!" - Tony Robbins. This is your time to respond to the disaster brought about by typhoon Ondoy. Go to your nearest volunteer recruitment center.

9. to Jim Paredes: "That is ok to have a break for being a Filipino. Our identities are shaped by culture. Cultures are inherently tentative. Our identities are defining moments, sometimes also a burden. As we are inserted into a historically conditioned society the malleability of identity is always achieved."

10. Our reflections about the recent national event should unite us even more in over coming the barriers that was brought by a typhoon. We now see barriers that prevents others from becoming human. There is a need to act to help other people.

11. There are around 200-dead people due to the effect of the typhoon. For sure if we are a prepared nation given this kind of natural-human disaster, the deaths could have been lessened.

12. Individually we will have to reflect on the events that is presently unfolding right now. As a collective community we will have to come to terms with a nation strategically located in a typhoon belt.

13. One plastic box full of wet clothing have been drained.

14. We will be mourning those who perished from this tragedy and we will be celebrating the birth of those being born with no memory of this event.

15. Still, this event raises the question, "As a people, how are we organized to confront a similar problem in the future?"

16. Even my granddaughter who is barely equipped with our language is trying to tell her story of how flood waters is going inside the house. She is 3-years old.

17. I guess will have to keep the learning and the bad memories go away with the receding flood waters. Typhoon Ondoy is a terror, terrible teacher.

18. Since this historical floods came rushing in we have to change our ways of thinking on how to cope when the next flood will come along.

19. Flood waters came inside our house last Saturday. We have been living here for the past 19-years. This is the first time flood came into our house. Books, magazines, documents came out wet. Some books have to be discarded. Around 80 kilos of magazin...es that I am selling as collectors items over the net have to go. An Italian painting magazine of 1960 got wet and turned into soggy shreds.

20. "Before I die, I want to make a movie that shows people over 70 having hot erotic relationship. I'd have to write the script myself." Jane Fonda on being 70.

21. When you age, you don't have to be perfect.

22. Governments given their power at their disposal cannot abolish religion. At best they have to cooperate with it.

23. Our shared experiences can be blocked by our failure or incapacity to communicate.

24. Silence possess a power that we grope for something tangible that the mind wants to produce, so that a stalled conversation can pick-up and continue its mandatory journey.

25. When we meet again people who are related to us and that means you are physically both far from each other, you want to overcome the silence that touches you in between your conversations. There is an attitude that wanting to search for a topic, an object of conversation to connect and to keep on conversing because a pause, a silence can be a felt pain.