Headline, October 06 2024/ ''' SOCIAL* SKILLS SOCCER '''

 

''' SOCIAL* SKILLS

 SOCCER '''

THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY : THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS : FOR individuals and societies, an ability to talk to new people is just so vital. It can easily be lost.

ATTITUDES TO STRANGERS tend to follow familiar pattern. Children / students are taught never to speak to unknown grown-ups, especially those regarded by their parents as  untrustworthy.

The onset of adolescence and young adulthood brings a bursting desire to interact with all sorts of people, particularly the kind who might not elicit family approval. Whether the resulting encounters are sexual or social, they confer a thrilling frisson of escape.

Social circles generally narrow again as people find life-partners, from households and produce offspring of their own. Time becomes scarce ;  new friendships are often based on sharing the burden of child care.

Some people never recover the youthful zest for unforeseen liaisons. Professional duties swell even as potential ones diminish, and the inclination sags. In old, even if curiosity and charisma remain undimmed, frailty makes a new serendipitous connections harder to establish.

But that is not the whole story. In midlife and beyond people can still experience the joy of a random meeting, however short, which somehow touches a nerve.

That might involve nothing more than a smile, or a chance remark that hits an emotional spot ; or might be an unexpectedly deep conversation on a plane or train, a surge of mutual understanding that is life-affirming even if the interlocutor is never seen again.

This aspect of the promise and peril of strangers has enticed story-tellers - from the rapture of '' Brief Encounter '' and '' Brief Sunrise '' to the ruin of '' Strangers on a Train ''. The knowledge that the exchange will be a one-off can permit a delicious, uninhibited frankness.

IN THE AGE of Covid-19 and Zoom, the chronological pattern has been warped. Instead of their hazy possibilities and risks, strangers have assumed an all-too-literal role as a looming source of infection.

During lockdowns, they are officially to be avoided. Yet youngsters still long, dangerously, for the ecstasy of communication, not just with edgy individuals but anonymous crowds. People of all ages have come to miss the human stimulation of busy high streets or trains, or the comforting sense of fellowship in a cinema or theatre audience.

So this is an apt moment for three books about meeting strangers :

1.-  Hello, Stranger. By Will Buckingham 

2.-  The Power of Strangers. By Joe Keohane.

3.-  Fractured. By Jon Yates.

Will Buckingham has written a moving memoir of finding solace, after the death of his life-partner, in traveling and talking in lands such as Myanmar that are culturally distant from his native England. 

Joe Keohane, an American journalist, argues that communicating empathetically with strangers is vital and potentially life-changing.

Jon Yates, who runs a youth charity based in London, frets that deep fissures in Western societies are marking it impossible for people to reach, even casually, between classes, religions, ethnicities and generations.

All three authors make sweeping generalisations about the evolution of human society, from hunter-gatherers to the age of Homer and beyond. But they are more interesting when they reflect, using personal experience or scientific research, on how people live and communicate now.

All three authors are inclined to overstate the ability of brief interactions to stave off conflict. Yet at least this much is true : a capacity to engage with new people in civilised, humane and meaningful ways is a necessary condition for social peace, even if it is not a sufficient one.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research and Writings on Social Skills, Peace and a Civilized World, continues. The World Students  Society thanks The Economist.

With respectful dedication to the Global Founder Framers of !WOW!, The Life Long Members of !WOW!, Grandparents, Parents, and then Students, Professors and Teachers of the world :

See You all prepare for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society - for every subject in the world - : wssciw.blogspot.com & Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless