Talk Hard

'Jam me, Jack me, Push me, Pull me. Talk Hard'.

I can't talk. It doesn't come naturally.

You would think once one has reached what's considered middle age that the art of conversation would be relatively easy.

But like the teenager depicted in the 1990 film Pump Up The Volume, starring Christian Slater as a repressed high school student who is an underground DJ by night and gains a cult following for raising real issues, talking doesn't come naturally.

And it is holding me back. I think.

We all know people who can just talk the legs off a chair. It doesn't matter the topic, there doesn't need to be a topic, they can go and go and go.

Now there are a few things that I can talk at length about, but in general when it comes to conversation I find it very hard. I don't know how interesting I am. Or how interested others are in what I have to say.

Then there's the question of how much I am willing to reveal.

Talk hard. That's the message of Slater's Hard Harry to the kids of Hubert Humphrey High. Rise up, don't keep things inside.

"We're all worried, we're all in pain. That comes with having eyes and having ears. But just remember one thing. It can't get any worse, it can only get better."

Now we have Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc etc but looking around it doesn't seem to me that the world has changed as far as teenagers go in the last 30 years.

Of course, I'm not a teenager. Maybe I should have listened to Hard Harry a bit more myself.