每个人都有自己的性格，有些人喜欢不停的说话，就算闲聊也可以聊很久，也有一些人，非常追求实际，不愿意把时间浪费在无效的社交上，更不愿意把宝贵的时间浪费在闲聊。我们可能讨厌闲聊，更乐意分享自己的内心，但闲聊的是为了什么，真的没有好处吗？
1
A lot of discomfort about going to social engagements is rooted in what can sound like a rather high-minded concern: a hatred of small talk. We can develop a dread of parties because we know how likely we are to end up wedged into conversations about the weather, parking, traffic, or the way we plan to spend the forthcoming holidays—when there would be so many deeper and more dignified topics to address: the future of humanity, the fate of the nation, or the melancholy state of our hearts. We resent parties for holding up an ideal of community and dialogue while trapping us in unproductive and insincere banter, making us more lonely than we ever would be in our own homes.
参加社交活动的诸多不适感根源于一种听起来相当高尚的忧虑：一种对闲聊的憎恨。我们会形成一种对聚会的恐惧，因为我们知道我们的对话很可能会陷入关于天气、停车、交通或我们计划如何度过即将到来的假期的话题中，而这时会有很多更深入、更有尊严的话题要讨论：人类的未来、国家的命运或者我们内心的忧郁。我们痛恨聚会，因为聚会不仅阻碍理想的社区与谈话，还会使我们陷入无益和不真诚的玩笑之中，使我们比在自己家里更加孤独。
2
But we are perhaps misunderstanding what small talk is for, what it could be in our hands, and how we might gently find an exit from its more airless corners. Small talk exists for a noble reason: it is designed to prevent hurt. It provides us with a rich source of information so that we can safely ascertain the frame of mind of our interlocutor and therefore gauge what more in-depth topics of conversation might safely be broached.
但我们可能误解了闲聊是为了什么以及我们如何才能从空气更少的角落温和地找到出口。闲聊的存在有一个崇高的原因：为了防止伤害。闲聊为我们提供了丰富的信息来源，使我们能够安全地确定对话者的心态，从而判断哪些更深入的对话议题可以安全地讨论。
3
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once darkly reminded us that we should always remember, when meeting new people, that they might be only a few steps away from wanting to grab a weapon and end their own lives. A few moments of small talk give us the signals we need to find out who we have on our hands; it lends us time to circle intimacy from on high before determining where we might wish to land.
德国哲学家阿瑟·叔本华曾经阴郁地提醒我们，我们应该记住，当我们遇到陌生人时，他们可能只有几步之遥便想拿起武器结束自己的生命。几分钟的闲聊给了我们必要的信号，让我们知道目前我们身边有谁；这给我们提供了时间，让我们在确定想要降落的地方之前，从高处开始圈出亲密感。
4
Furthermore, a rigid hatred of small talk overlooks that it isn’t ever the subject matter per se that determines the profundity of a conversation. There are ways of talking about death that are trivial and ways of addressing the weather that feel significant. A truly deep mind can exercise itself as much on the game of a child as on the puzzles of philosophy. It is unfortunate snobbery to discount a topic merely because it has never featured in erudite academic curricula.
此外，对闲谈的一成不变的憎恨忽略了谈话本身并不决定谈话深度这一事实。以下是一些琐碎的谈论死亡的方技巧，以及一些让人感觉意义重大的谈论天气的技巧。真正深刻的头脑可以在孩子的游戏上锻炼自己，也可以在哲学的谜题上锻炼自己，如果仅仅因为一个话题从来没有出现在博学的学术课程中而忽视它，这是令人遗憾的势利。
5
We should take inspiration from how many great artists have based their work around what were, at heart, versions of “small talk.” In the early 1820s, the English artist John Constable painted fifty studies of the clouds above Hampstead Heath in London, finding extraordinary beauty and complexity in the ever-changing quiet aerial drama above him. With no less open-mindedness, at the end of the nineteenth century, the French artist Paul Cézanne paid close attention to the varied beauty of apples, painting dozens of studies of these modest snacks laid out in bowls and on sideboards. Buddhism teaches us that, to those gifted enough to see properly, the whole world can be found in a single grain of sand.
我们应该从许多伟大的艺术家的作品中汲取灵感，他们的作品本质上是描述“闲谈”。19世纪20年代初，英国艺术家约翰·康斯特布尔对伦敦汉普特斯西斯公园上空的云彩进行了五十次研究，他上方不断变化的安静的空中戏剧中发现了非同寻常的美丽和复杂性。在19世纪末，以同样开放的心态，法国艺术家保罗·塞尚密切关注苹果的各种美丽，他绘制了几十份关于这些摆在碗里和餐具柜上的朴素小吃的研究报告。佛教教导我们，对于那些有足够天赋的人来说，整个世界都可以在一粒沙子中找到。
6
We should perceive no insult in a call to glimpse the grandest themes through the lens of small talk. The skilled conversationalist doesn’t insist that atmospheric or traffic conditions or where a person has been at the seaside are inherently unworthy of discussion. They know that what a person feels about a cloudy afternoon might be a highway to their soul or that their experiences around parking might provide clues as to their attitudes to authority or their relations with their parents. They are not put off by having to work with humble matter; they are deft enough to use whatever is to hand.
从闲聊的镜头中窥见最宏伟的主题，我们不应该感觉到任何侮辱。熟练的健谈者并不坚持认为天气或交通条件或一个人去过的海边本质上是不值得讨论的。他们知道一个人对一个多云的下午的感觉可能是通往他们灵魂的一条高速公路，或者他们在停车时的经历可能会暗示他们对权威的态度或他们与父母的关系。他们不会因为必须要处理卑微的事情而退缩；他们足够机敏地使用手头上的任何东西。
7
The fear of small talk reflects a worry, hugely understandable and with roots in childhood experience, that we will be unable to influence the flow of a conversation by ourselves, that we will be the victims of the obsession or pettiness of others, and that conversation is fundamentally a natural, organic occurrence which happens to us but cannot be created or shaped by us. We can feel that when a person says something, we must invariably respond in a similar way: an anecdote about a golf tournament needs to be followed by another, and a story about a booking confusion at a hotel must be chipped in with a corollary. But, in truth, we have far more conversational agency than this implies; it is almost always in our power to raise more intimate or profound follow-up questions. And we can do so with the confidence that few of us are ever committed to remaining on the surface; we just don’t know how to descend to the depths.
对闲聊的恐惧反映了源于童年经历的一种深深可以理解的担忧，即我们自己无法影响谈话的进行，我们将成为他人痴迷或琐碎的受害者，从根本上说，对话是一种发生在我们身上的自然的、有机的事件，但不是我们自己创造或塑造的；它可能在某些时候非常引人入胜，在其他情况下非常令人沮丧，但结果并不是由我们来决定的。我们可以感觉到，当一个人说什么时，我们必须以同样的方式作出回应：一件关于高尔夫锦标赛的轶事需要另一件事跟随；如果某人有一个关于预定酒店困惑的故事，另一个必须加上一个推论。但是，事实上，我们拥有比这更多的会话能力；几乎总是在我们的能力范围内提出更亲密或更深刻的后续问题。我们可以自信地做到，即我们中几乎没有人只致力于留在表面上；我们只是不知道如何潜到海底去。
8
An individual who is currently talking at puzzling length about an airline meal has also inevitably been disappointed in love, had bouts of despair, tried to make sense of a difficult parent, and felt confused about their direction—and will be longing, at some level, to stop talking about cheese crackers and share the contents of their heart. The confident conversationalist does not take fright at small talk and is not scared by others’ occasional apparently firm attachment to it. They know that small themes need only ever be the first, understandable, and never insulting steps towards the sincerity and intimacy all of us crave at heart.
目前，一个人正在以令人费解的篇幅谈论一顿航空餐，他也不可避免地对爱情感到失望，对于试图理解难以应对的父母，感到绝望，对他们的方向感到困惑，因此，在某种程度上，他将渴望不再谈论奶酪饼干，而是分享他们心中的内容。自信的谈话者不会害怕闲聊，也不会因为别人偶尔表现出的对闲聊的坚定依恋而感到害怕。他们知道，小的主题永远只需要作为第一个可以理解的、永远不会侮辱的步骤，朝着我们每个人心中渴望的真诚和亲密迈进。
适合用以下主题心理课
01、社交心理学：打破对闲聊的认知偏见
视频指出人们因 “追求深度话题” 而排斥闲聊，却忽视其作为 “社交安全垫” 的功能 —— 通过天气、交通等表面话题探测对方情绪状态，为深入交流铺垫信任基础。
02、情绪管理：缓解社交焦虑与自我效能感
对闲聊的恐惧本质是 “害怕无法掌控对话走向” 的焦虑，源于童年对 “被动社交” 的无力感。课程可聚焦如何通过主动引导闲聊，提升社交掌控感。
03、沟通心理学：非语言沟通与隐性情感挖掘
视频强调 “闲聊内容不是关键，如何聊才是深度”—— 通过语气、表情、话题延伸方式，从日常谈资中捕捉对方的情感需求（如抱怨天气可能隐含压力情绪）。
