phone call

Prelude:
Mom: son, you should cut down on your phone calls. They’re exceeding an hour each time you call.

Me: what I say in my phone calls is essential to understanding the logic of life. TS and I both acknowledge the importance of knowing these theories, so talking about them only helps us understand better from each other's perspectives. In fact, you should listen to what we say; it'll be beneficial to you, definitely.

Mom: come; look at this book I’m currently reading. Check it out. It speaks of prioritizing your life to make it more purposeful. Things like watching TV, gossiping over the phone should be cut down, and the time should be spent on more purposeful things, like jogging, exercising, reading, improving yourself.

Me: you need to understand. What the book reads is merely a perspective understood by an individual; and not a sacred manual. Besides absorbing the essential knowledge lying in between the lines, you should also think deeper into what is being said in the book, and bring your understanding of it to a deeper level. The fact that you are asking me to cut down on my phone time is basically due to the fact that you think I am gossiping, which means that I am "talking about useless topics that probably have no meaning to me, and by doing that, I am simply wasting my time." That inference is logical, but on the other hand, subjective. that is due to the simple logic that you do not know what I am talking to TS about on the phone, and therefore, you turn your assumption into "fact", and convince yourself that I am talking about "things that do not matter to me and am therefore wasting my time."

Mom: I do not know if what you talk about is good, or gossip. And seriously it does not matter to me. I just want to tell you that you should cut down on how long you chat on the phone, and do some other stuff. Just like now I am cutting down on the amount of time I spend on watching TV.

Me: by repeating what you told me earlier, it is evident that you have not been listening to what I have said, and made no effort to interpret or understand it in any sense. But I think I should at least attempt to explain to you the logic behind this whole issue. To me, discussing such theories on the phone with TS is of equal importance as you reading books and understanding their theories. On the same note, you feel that it is meaningless for me to chat on the phone, and vice versa, I find it pointless that you choose to waste your time on television. I do find it interesting that you readily and willingly absorb whatever logic that the authors of those books lay before you, but choose to lend a deaf ear to your son's explanation of his logic, as if whatever he says is of no utter relevance or importance.