Dialogue exercises and practical applications

Dialogue Exercises

The restaurant was small and cozy, one of those places where you can simply sit. Sit and listen that is: she had gone out for a cigarette (nasty habit -- I just can't make her quit) and I am alone to immerse myself in the indistinctive chatter around me.

The young couple in front of me is interesting: she is in her early thirties, with a kind and caring face and concerned eyes. She looks at nothing but him, as if he is the only character that exists and the only one that matters in the room. He is dark: the entire spectrum of mankind's problems seems to be hovering over him and everything in his conformation shows it. The tie has gone off to allow fresh breaths, in an attempt to cool his anguish, but his preoccupied eyebrows and forehead show that it will take lots of breaths.

"It just can't be true and I will not have it," moans Jacques (there is something about him that makes me call him Jacques -- maybe a French elegance in his approach).

"Honey, there are sometimes things we have to get used to. Life is beautiful as it is," pointed out Jane (I think she could be a Jane -- simple, yet profound in her ways).

"What if we just all lived to be 250 years old? What would happen then?"

"Well, on one hand, we would probably spend the remaining 220 years of our lives eating bark and grass. How in the world could this planet feed billions of people who refuse to die? You can't expect that."

"Stop trying to make me feel better. I want to feel bad now and I want to embrace my entire sad human dimension"

"As long as you also accept it, we might actually get somewhere. Think of some of the nice things you have done together."

"No, that will make me sadder."

"Didn't you say you wanted to embrace your sad human dimension?"

"Yes, but not like that. I want to be philosophical and cool about it. You know, like the Greek philosophers, like that cynical naked guy spending time in his barrel, Diogenes."

"Suit yourself. Maybe you can focus on the future instead of thinking of the past."

"How?"

"Let's have a baby and celebrate life"

"Well, philosopher, what better way to mock human condition than to exercise our greatest ability: that of being able to create and give life? We may not avoid death, but we can certainly create life."