Monkeys

I can’t stop noticing little power games play out in conversation, the way people avert their eyes when they feel defeated, the way they laugh when the superior in their proximity laughs, the way their eyes move.

The way so many so clearly see conversations as not an opportunity to learn but an opportunity to win. 

I let everyone own me in conversation. I know nothing. I lose every time. I am Joe Rogan. I just go wow, man, and ask a lot of questions. Hopefully something new, probably something that starts with “How do you feel” or “How often do you” or “Why”… something that cannot be Googled.  

I think I know what we are to each other, and it’s not pretty. We only see tools. We don’t see each other. We see only what we can gain from each other. And this isn’t a moral outcry. This is just what I have observed. What I wish I could stop observing.