The Hackneyed Language of Relationships, Unrelationships, and All on a Manner of Strangers.
Bland and innocuous enough, weather is discussed. Discussed when significance stands to be dodged, discussed when awkwardness sweeps sociability away, and discussed as a neutral, mild sense of proffering friendliness without affronting anyone in any particular way.
But why is weather the prosaic monotony we have made it out to be? Is weather not as provoking a topic as any other? And why the matter of weather and nothing else?
“I think it is [such a ubiquitous topic] because it’s just something that happens everyday and it is always a conversation topic whether it is bad weather or good weather or if it’s just mid,” said Sky MacIvor ‘26.
According to a study done by social psychologists Norbert Schwarz and Gerald L. Clore, the satisfaction of life tenderly cared for by the participants of man is largely affected by the climate. Wrote Sentient Decision Science, an online forum of weathered weather enthusiasts, “As the participants [of the experiment being done] thought about the weather before they answered questions about their emotional well-being, they continued to register and associate the external climate with their internal climate.”
But whether the seemingly mundane, “The weather sure is fine today,” betrays a more ardent emotion or not, it strikes a certain degree of suspicion. Allegedly, friendlers of all walks of life partake in this international phenomenon even though the majority of our human cousins prefer many things over the mumps and drumps of meteorology, such as perusing through B-Line articles or pursuing delirious dental hygienists.
But whether weather wearies down exchanges between strangers because of its blatant boringness or because of its far-reaching prevalence, it is not known, but both are dubious at most.
For instance, say somebody stands, drenched, on a pebbled road, amid a vast, ethereal fog. As they preen in the wonders of the tremulous world, they come upon something by happenstance. This something, of evil, evokes darkness or whiskers or cyclopsian blood-dripping tea. And they are struck with an alarming, injurious beast, and never untangle their memory debris. Accordingly, they are forever reminded of their harrowing troubles when confronted by the fripperies of fog.
Now, take this person, and picture them trundling through the checkout lane of their local grocery store, their basket heaping with peas. The cashier, courteous and ever the dandy gentleman, remarks upon the weather: “Ever the lovely fog outside, aye?”. And our friend, upon affirming his statement to be true by use of a wretched window nearby, gasps and either has a fit of psychosis or flees with their peas flying after them.
This argument, though rather drastic, can be fitted for the purpose of any topic of conversation, and the opposite can be said as well. Sundry parley-participants do not find any offense at myriad other conversation topics, such as the etymology of peas, but why weather was chosen as the neutral of neutrals and not the etymology of peas is a fine query indeed.
One could attest that weather requires little to none previous knowledge, whilst the etymology of peas requires previous knowledge in brimming amounts, but one need not any previous knowledge (forby the rather obvious knowledge of seeing, of language, and of all other cases besides) to perceive and converse on color, on emotional wellbeing, or on the creamy snarls of The Great Imagination.
Now, on its omnipresence: if weather is discussed religiously for the mere purpose of its being just about everywhere and requiring no peeling, unfeasible intellect to observe, the minds of human beings are rather synonymous to that of the brown-shouldered chestnut, filled with naught but solid, beguiling dirt.
If weather is the only visitor who frequents the day-to-day routine we hold by, we, by definition, are scarcely even seeing the world surrounding, let alone being on the qui vive for a meaningful life.
Forsooth, if one were to speak of weather for little of two seconds or for the entirety of seven years, neither conversation would produce anything of worth, merely time squandered and a bleak horizon of idle-talk ahead.
But, as mentioned briefly above, the topic of weather could, in fact, be a threadbaren, tweeded trench coat, obscuring a more poignant, more sentimental conversation occurring between the lines.
For instance, “this weather is too hot” could be interpreted as “my life has taken an unpleasant turn and I’d rather be spitting in Grumsy’s peanut butter soup.” Or, “Don’t you just adore the icy weather?” could be interpreted as “I, though being one of those irksome individuals who employ the use of the word ‘adore’, am so content with my life that while others are suffering and dying of frostbite I prance through the streets with my earmuffs.”
And so, whether talking of weather is shallow and pointless or weather is crucially deep, it lies as unfathomable, foggy, askew, and will sit through the trials we keep.
