loader from loading.io

Meaningless Conversations

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

Release Date: 03/21/2025

Practitioner show art Practitioner

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam wonders if we have what it takes any more. If the thumbs up button is as far as we'll go or as much as we'll do. ----- David Brooks wrote a column in the New York Times last week calling for a, quote “comprehensive national civic uprising.” There are well over four thousand comments with most being something along the lines of “Yes. It’s about time. Someone should do something.” Brooks’ says the Trump administration has gone too far, that we are indeed in a constitutional crisis, and it’s time to act. But, I wonder, do we have what it takes to...

info_outline
Prom show art Prom

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam tells us that based on a series of recent events, he has two people he'd like offer up as potentially superb spies. ----- My twins are high school juniors, and prom was last Saturday night. The event went something like this: For my son: He brought his Joseph Banks suit downstairs about noon. It looked like it had been in a pile on the floor since he last wore it in March. There was a button-down shirt with it. My wife took the clothes and began steaming the wrinkles out. She asked “What flowers did you get your date.” A blank look. “Go to Publix and...

info_outline
To AI or Not AI. That Is The Question. show art To AI or Not AI. That Is The Question.

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On today's Keepin' it Real, Cam reports on a writer's conference he attended last weekend where a good part of the conversation was about using AI. All the writers, Cam reports, choose to not use it, preferring to remain "pure." ----- I attended a writers' conference last Saturday. Writers are a curious breed, convinced their unique perspective on describing something as mundane as a sunset is groundbreaking and essential. I love them. But they’re weird. This year, though, a frequent topic was artificial intelligence – how do writers use it, if at all. Speaker after speaker claimed they...

info_outline
Get The Joke show art Get The Joke

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

Cam and his wife were at a wedding reception last week. It was beautiful. One conversation, though, has stuck with him. ----- My wife and I stood with a young man at a wedding Saturday night as he lamented the lack of turkeys to hunt at his camp. There were no gobblers, he said, and he was a bit down in the mouth about it. “Why,” my wife asked. “In the spring,” he said, “the hens move to a different place where they like the environment for nesting. The gobblers follow. And wherever those hens go, it’s not on our property. I wish there were something about our place that the hens...

info_outline
Judges Of The Truth show art Judges Of The Truth

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

It's been a long week for Cam. He's going to get paid one hundred dollars for two days of work that he is required by law to perform. He didn't enjoy it but it wasn't because of the low pay. ------ In grade school I never wanted to be the one to pick teams. I was afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. It’s ridiculous, I know. I like to get along. I like to see people succeed. I’ve never wanted to be the arbiter of someone’s else’s happiness. That responsibility scares me. Monday morning, I was selected as a jury member for a federal trial. It was my first time doing this. I was one of...

info_outline
Meaningless Conversations show art Meaningless Conversations

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston shares what exhausts him and how a good conversation is hard to find. ----- It was 1,000 one-minute conversations. A collection of people who all were within a degree, maybe a half a degree, of separation. Hardly a meaningful chat and as the event wore on, the meaningfulness of the chats dwindled further. For so little conversation, it was exhausting. I think maybe that conversations that skim along the veneer of content are more taxing than digging into content. I don’t know. But when I left, I was completely spent. I’m like so many other people...

info_outline
Happiness show art Happiness

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On today's Keeping It Real, Cam recounts his birthday week which has some unexpected surges of happiness.  ----- Happiness is fleeting. It never lasts and I’m not sure it’s supposed to. It’s different than joy and contentment and pleasantness. Happiness bubbles up from an unexpected place and last such a short time. And when it arrives, it sometimes brings tears. Living in constant happiness would render us nearly helpless. It immobilizes you. Living in joy and contentment is great with, hopefully, unexpected surges of happiness from time to time that render us speechless. For my...

info_outline
The Ft. Lauderdale Accord show art The Ft. Lauderdale Accord

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam explains the Ft Lauderdale accord and how it's telling him that it's time to move on. ----- My wife and I will be empty nesters in eighteen months. If all goes according to plan, in that time our youngest two will graduate and head to college and if looking back is anything like looking ahead, these next eighteen months will fly by. If you’re a regular listener, you know that my wife and I have four kids. We purchased this house with a family of six in mind. With only two kids left at home, it’s already a lot of space and in eighteen months it will be...

info_outline
Paraty show art Paraty

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On today's Keepin It Real, Cam reports back about his most memorable event on his recent trip to Brazil. He traveled a long way to come back with this... ------ Cachaca is a Brazilian alcohol that was first made by the slaves the Portuguese brought to Brazil. It’s sugar cane based. Very sweet. And like gumbo, red beans and rice, jazz music, and the Mississippi delta blues among other things, it was what the poor people created due to a lack of resources and that the wealthy people eventually wanted. Crazy how that works so predictably. It’s like clockwork.  Anyway, my wife and I were...

info_outline
Procrastinating Like a Champion show art Procrastinating Like a Champion

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

Today on Keepin' It Real, Cam looses focus and finds his mind wandering about an upcoming trip instead of focusing on what need to be done. ----- My day today will be spent studying Brazilian demographics. And I know what you’re thinking: How did I get so lucky? I mean, come on, most of us have to work but you get to spend your day studying Brazilian demographics. How is that fair? Friday, my wife and I leave for a week in Brazil. I’ve been invited to speak at a conference next week in Sao Paulo. These types of invitations are rare for me.  While at a conference in November, a young...

info_outline
 
More Episodes

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston shares what exhausts him and how a good conversation is hard to find.

-----

It was 1,000 one-minute conversations. A collection of people who all were within a degree, maybe a half a degree, of separation. Hardly a meaningful chat and as the event wore on, the meaningfulness of the chats dwindled further. For so little conversation, it was exhausting. I think maybe that conversations that skim along the veneer of content are more taxing than digging into content. I don’t know. But when I left, I was completely spent.

I’m like so many other people claiming that technology has impacted today’s youth’s ability to communicate. I bemoan their addicted behaviors when it comes to their phones. Technology has impacted their ability to talk, I say, or to hold a conversation, or to make eye contact. Today’s technology has made them only interested in what everyone else is doing or saying, unable to engage with what’s happening right here, right now, right in front of them. However, my own behavior at this event wasn’t much different than the complaints I make about them. I can imagine how I looked, flitting from person to person, hardly engaging anyone, only looking for what’s next and who else was there. The event was spectacular. I was the problem.

Not long ago I read about a couple who were invited to a dinner party. They normally decline these invitations because they abhor small talk; it wears them out. The host, however, insisted and the couple begrudgingly showed up, fake smiles pasted on their faces. Once the final guests arrived and all were seated for dinner, the host asked a bombshell question: “How do each of you deal with your marital conflicts?” After a moment of stunned silence, the couples began sharing their stories and their tactics and their lessons learned. There was no small talk to be had. It was an immediate deep dive into meaningful content. The reluctant couple had said to each other they’d stay until it was acceptable to leave. They had their departure excuse rehearsed. However, they ended up staying until well after midnight and left energized by the conversations, not depleted.

I had lunch with a guy a while back. I had shared a book I enjoyed with him weeks before. When he and I sat down, I asked him what he felt his purpose in life were, which was a major element of the book. When his tone changed and he began subtly mocking me thinking I didn’t notice, I realized I had rushed things. It was too soon for that question. Was it too soon in our lunch? Too soon in our friendship? I don’t know. We both hurried the lunch to a close and he’s avoided me ever since. I was searching for meaningful content and assumed he’d join me. He was having none of it and none of me. It’s too bad, too. He’s an interesting guy.

Like most people my age, I’m old enough now that I know a good number of people. I wanted that at one point and, well, here I am. However, at my age, I’m old enough now to realize that I want to know, truly know, many, many fewer.

I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.