Communication Without Communicating

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The other day, I reported my status to everyone who asked as “Smurfy”, in reference of course to the cartoon The Smurfs produced by Hanna Barbera from 1981 to 1989. Whenever any member of that cartoon society described anything, they always described it as “smurfy”, which by my estimation means both everything and nothing. Using that word allows me to answer without giving an answer, and the recipient assumes based on the imagery from the cartoon that smurfy equals good.

Fact of the matter is that smurfy for me rarely ever means good. If I tell you I’m well, I really mean it, unlike so many in society who use the inquest as to state as a greeting without really caring for or listening to the answer. Over the years, I’ve tried many responses:

Terrible, thanks for asking.

About average, but other than that not bad.

Wellish.

All of these basically deal with the same prospect, but smurfy also seems to imply that I’m in a bad mood. While that is almost always a good guess, it’s not the image I’m trying to convey. I really want people to get to the point, so I seek a phrase that allows me to be honest and let them think what they want to think.

This technique is used by almost every politician I’ve ever met. Even John Ensign (R-NV) when I spoke to him dodged the questions by answering with a non-answer. Most politicians answer the question they wished you asked and go way off target. The rest, like Barack Obama (D-IL) give long speeches about absolutely nothing. Nobody says nothing better than Obama.

Conservative Talk Show Host Sean Hannity pointed out that Obama has that skill, and on his recent Mideast trip, Obama proved the point when he in a 40 minute speech used bridging phrases (um, er, and…that like) that totaled almost 8 minutes of his speech. That means that 20% of what Obama said was gibberish off the top, beyond the contradictions, generalities and duplicities.

Unfortunately, communication problems spill over into everything, and account for many if not all, of the conflicts in life. From marriage to finances to politics, we can learn something from Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game, in which the buggers were annihilated because the humans could not understand their apologetic overture.