Where gossip grows like bad weed (and were good work is hard to come by)

Few months ago, back home in Italy, I sat in a bus, listened to two old ladies talking and chatting about XYZ in our community. Interested in this phenomenon, I was at the same time quite released not to be part of these in-depth reflections on who is who and who is with whom and who is not any longer with whom (not to forget about who was born and who died). How wrong I was thinking that in a town 6000 km away from my home I could successfully dive into a pool of cool, light blue anonymity. My plan to remain a stranger outside the gossip world obviously failed. Though I spend most of my evenings with comparatively little adventeruos activities such as reading, writing or working, my early mornings with sport, and my days with desktop work and meetings, my weekends with some walks and the occasional coffee, I still seem to be unprotected from gossip. Without doing anything, I suddenly found myself dragged into ridicolous stories (will keep the details for myself). Sometimes I wonder how much more boring my life (in terms of social interactions) must get before I am finally out of this swamp of invented stories. I also wonder, if people have nothing better to do than gossip about each other in a country that isn't quite animating (at least not me) for unserious talk. Who knows, maybe its exactly this desperation that surrounds us that creates the temptation to involve in easy gossip about each others lifes, instead of focusing on the much harder task of doing serious work that actually has an impact.

All in all, I am happy that there is no vodoo in Afghanistan. Otherwise I would be really afraid, instaed of just annoyed by what other people think...