Long-distance train conversations are unlike the perfunctory exchanges one normally associates with strangers, or the truncated, cut-to-the-chase kind that sometimes take place between seatmates on a plane.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I live in England, so I take a lot of trains, and you can't really go anywhere without somebody talking on their mobile phone behind you, forcing you to listen to their conversation. With the Internet, with texting, with networking sites, there's already information everywhere.
A text conversation is a short exchange of often grossly truncated language that corresponds to a thought made all the more shallow by the process.
Having a conversation on a landline is more intimate than talking to someone in person. Your voices are so clear and close - you're in each other's heads.
No collection of people who are all waiting for the same thing are capable of holding a natural conversation. Even if the thing they are waiting for is only a taxi.
In this world, conversations are negotiations for closeness in which people try to seek and give confirmation and support, and to reach consensus. They try to protect themselves from others' attempts to push them away.
Whether a plane to Singapore, a subway in Manhattan, or the streets of Cincinnati, I search for meaningful conversation wherever I may travel. Without it, I believe we lose the ability to not only understand others, but more importantly, ourselves.
Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories.
There is one way to have a short but exciting conversation with me, and that is to move too slow.
Travel, instead of broadening the mind, often merely lengthens the conversation.
Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation.