Because I listened to Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa. These are the words that damn me. Invoking mockery and derision. Because I’ve listened to Dua Lipa. Because I’ve watched a Rita Ora & Charli XCX video on YouTube. Because I own a couple of Taylor Swift songs. Because I know who Raye is.

The user centric algorithm based search results of a music streaming service are but an echo of activity spliced with some marketing AI. It’s aims are simple, to keep you using the service, remain monetising. The agenda is transparent. But what of those around me? My “friends”. The sources of mockery. The intervention. The flurry of value judgements. “This isn’t your music”. “This is pop”. “I remember when you had taste”. “You introduced me to some of the music I love but now all I see is a broken man having a mid life crisis investing his energy into young lovelies in a vaguely concerning manner.”

Communication. Not my forte. People. Not my bag. At work it sort of is but it’s all focused on computer systems and there’s a base logic at the heart of each debate, a pattern, a model we can all support. I never have to look a colleague in the eyes and ask them how they’re feeling. Unless it’s a joke, or a device to unsettle them as my logic isn’t winning the day. What I’m doing leading a large team when I have the interpersonal skills of a faulty dot matrix printer is perhaps a ripe subject for another blog but let me acknowledge I at least pick and choose how and when I communicate with people.

Or do I? Can we ever stop communicating. How is my body poised in relation to the other person. Where are my feet pointing? Am I slumped? Upright? Am I looking into their eyes or anywhere else? Is this somewhere polite society tells me I shouldn’t be staring at. And smacking my lips exclaiming “oh boy!”. Do my responses chime with theirs, a forward narrative that shows we’re listening and responding to each other? Or am I on broadcast mode, simply conveying my message and discounting theirs?

And what about when it’s a group? What about when I don’t know them well and we have no common ground to back reference. Do I have small talk? Or do I think of it as a precursor to the Java programming language? What is small talk? The weather? Brexit? Donald Trump? Tax deadlines? I sit at dinner tables with friends of friends and flounder. No one talks about work - too gauche, bar to say we’re all awfully busy. No one does politics….although the right wing people like us tone rings strong. Religion - I don’t think so. The arts? No. Society? Too much like politics. Move on. Where are you going skiing this year? I’m left with nothing. Or at least nothing I care about. Whether blah blah blah’s house is or isn’t selling. How hard it is to find a decent gardner or cleaner. What house improvements we should contemplate next. Yeah, let’s replace some guttering but let’s never speak of it more than we have to and never, ever over starters.

Are we a caring society or are we wilfully looking the other way as people fall by the wayside. What does this manifestation mean to us as individuals and as a collective? What is brexit? A rejection of central european bankers or a return turn the a world of zero rights and the Victorian ruling class. Do we live in a democracy? Should we accept the status quo? Who is actually happy? And is this an unobtainable myth? Are we just animals, circling each other working out the next death strike? What does art say to us as people? Do we question ourselves? What does history tell us of today? Should we accept science’s only truism, that whatever we currently view as an accepted position will be challenged and improved in perpetuity?

This is too hard. We’re scared of each other. Let’s talk about the new models of BMWs instead. The latest crime series on tv. The new super food in the stores. Let’s smile and wave. Get through the day. Let’s skim. Let’s play Dua Lipa.