Social Conventions

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about social conventions, the mandatory conversations, gestures, and actions we must perform everyday to be considered polite, accepted members of society. Many of these conventions have become automatic and are considered courteous. Not performing these conventions may have you labeled as rude or bad natured. I decided to go one day without saying anything because I had to, I did not say hello to people when I passed them unless I intended on having a conversation with them. I did not ask questions unless they were ones I would want the answer to and when others asked me questions I would answer them fully even when I knew they were only asking out of politeness. This behavior caused a lot of head turning and talk about my demeanor. Even though I still acted politely and kindly my lack of standard social convention was perceived as rudeness. I also observed how much time in a day I would have spent using those social conventions. I realized the majority of what I say, and many other people for that matter, is because I have to say it. We spend so much time saying the things we should, we lose time to say the things we really mean. Under the mask of politeness these social conventions have become the main communication between most of us and have eliminated instances of meaningful conversations with intelligent purposeful content.