Yeah, I guess that is true for me too....now that I think about it...you aren't able to have friends and just talk about superficial things as easily....or maybe its just that you sense the hatred that is behind a lot of those superficial things. But I think it is perfectly possible to talk about superficial things with the right person.
For instance, I have a friend who is not interested in spirituality at all, but he is a very good-hearted person. So even though I am not that interested in things like baseball, and he knows that I am not that interested, we can have a nice conversation, for hours even, about baseball, and even though the superficial subject matter is baseball, it's really this good will towards each other that is the subject of our talking....and to be honest, and a little silly, I guess, it kinda makes me cry to talk about it, because he is really, despite having the flaws we all have, a good hearted person.
But your point is well taken. There is a lot of anger and hatred out there, and a lot of people, including people you call "friends" consciously or not, can drag you in to that....often in the context of a conversation about music, movies or some other topic.
In fact, the Pali canon has a whole list of topics you aren't supposed to talk about...let me see if I can find them.....wow, I know they are there, but its taking a long time.....OK, finally! here it is, and amazingly enough it is in a sutta in English called "The Fruit of the Contemplative Life"!!!
"Whereas some brahmans and contemplatives, living off food given in faith, are addicted to talking about lowly topics such as these — talking about kings, robbers, ministers of state; armies, alarms, and battles; food and drink; clothing, furniture, garlands, and scents; relatives; vehicles; villages, towns, cities, the countryside; women and heroes; the gossip of the street and the well; tales of the dead; tales of diversity [philosophical discussions of the past and future], the creation of the world and of the sea, and talk of whether things exist or not — he abstains from talking about lowly topics such as these. This, too, is part of his virtue."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.02.0.than.htmlNow, what I love about the Pali canon is this kind of list of specific things. There is a kind of humor about it, in its exhaustive specificity, and I think the writers of the Pali canon were aware of this.
The point for me is this:
1> and I put this first! It is a MISTAKE to take passages like this literally as the word of God, as in "I will go to hell in a handbasket if I talk about armies, alarms and battles." The reason I put this first is because there are those in the Theravadin community who take exactly this attitude and it is not healthy in my opinion.
2> The point of passages like this is be careful what you say, what you are talking about, and why you are talking about it. Pay attention. That is good advice. If you are talking about armies alarms and battles with metta and compassion, at the right time, at the right place and with the right person, then how is that bad?
