We can tell when someone is creating something to show it to others, for no other reason than to put their cleverness on display. Equally, we can tell when someone is creating for no other reason than they must.

Others can just be silent, keeping their thoughts to themselves, content with solitude and their rich inner world.

But silence, in the long run, can cost more than the risk of being misunderstood. Of others thinking you are aloof, distant or seeking to be conspicuously uninvolved.

While you wait for conversations with more depth and meaning, life and connections can brush past.

When creative expression and meaningful talk are reserved for moments of real importance, such as war, death, heartbreak or revolution, you can spend a great deal of time waiting.

But most of what we say, and what we communicate to one another, is not about catastrophe and crisis, but rather the texture and rhythm of ordinary life.

A friend tells you about their day.

A stranger posts a photo from their holiday.

A colleague shares their perspective on the weather.

It is easy to mock these things and dismiss them as small, self-indulgent distractions that add to an already cacophonous world. Indeed, I have always been annoyed and frustrated at how these utterances can crowd my thoughts, distracting me from achieving something more worthwhile. 

But I now recognise that I have been missing the point.

These expressions are not distractions from life. They are life. Banal. Pedestrian. Real.

We talk about politics, death and loss not because they are the only things that matter, but because they are the loudest.

Beneath these events are quieter truths. The need to be known, the yearning to be understood, the simple joy of saying, “I saw this thing, and I want you to see it too.”

What people call “small talk” is often anything but, and it is more often a test balloon, a type of reconnaissance, in preparing for a deeper connection. It asks:

Are you listening?

Are you there?

Can I be present with you, even briefly, without performance or pretence?

We are told to curate our conversation and speak only when we have something important to say, but what makes something important is rarely its subject. Instead, it is the honesty and sincerity behind the words.

Speaking is not always about informing, but about the need to feel less alone.

Communication and creativity are, therefore, not a luxury for the articulate and inspired but a necessity for all humans.

So, we should stop waiting for a disaster or monumental event to permit others to say something.

We should speak about it now. Even if it is small.

Especially if it is small.