FootprintsintheWind.com

It is good at times to not define terms so as to let them breathe and grow—growing is both a risk and an opening.

:- Doug.

For now, there is more conversation in my world than yours, 1. Conversation gathers worlds, 2. If we choose, we find profound, 3.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2270

Besides what I don’t want: what do I want? Belonging. There is a belonging to one another. Those close to us, and to the human family. It is the issue we are facing from the pandemic and from being separated from one another. We have developed silo-echo syndrome. We talk only in our own heads and listen to only similar tunes. We reject all others, and we fear and therefore hate all others. In truth, we are so composed that we are part of one another. When ripped apart, we are fragments, fringes, torn pieces with raw edges, nerves exposed and scraped, salt added. What we crave must be something deep within us. We want healing of these angry wounds. Scratching them only pulls off the scab, exposing the sore.

The salve, the quieting of the nerve cells, is in turning to one another. Surely we need some festivals and family gatherings. Cook-outs and street musicians, games and funerals and wakes. Hugs and a few more hugs. Gatherings for pizza and beer, or for hot chocolate. Sitting by the pool and reading together.

Surely we need each other.

Please pass it on.

© c 2023, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

An advantage for me of seeing conversation so many places as I do is I can learn of conversation from unexpected sources—say from architects or anarchists. Perhaps I do see conversation under every rock—what a delight to be learning so!

:- Doug.

Yes, No, Po, Random Juxtaposition, Honor your insights: I am surprised to uncover how much these have insinuated themselves into my everyday thinking. Undoubtedly too they have benefited or suffered—who can ever tell the difference?—from accretions.

:- Doug.

It is important to make up your own words, when the old ones are not up to the task you set them.

:- Doug.

What is the biggest mystery you still wonder about? What story could you think up to explain your wonder?

:- Doug.

Is contradiction necessary to conversation?

:- Doug.

When does a conversation open?

:- Doug.

We can be conversation-openers, openers of persons, openers of cumulating, openers for short.

:- Doug.

Come sit in the common circle.

:- Doug.

Those who work to hear fall naturally into the role of shifters into narrative, shifters into reflection, shifters into longer time spans, shifters into homely us.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2269

This is my Why-day.

Please pass it on.

© c 2023, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Meeting this person is often help enough.

:- Doug.

A further dimension of conversation is what the speaker wants. It is often beyond that to which the speaker gives voice. It might be beyond what the speaker can voice. It is the prodding unheard whisper in the speaker’s ear. But the other person in the conversation will meet it.

:- Doug.

What if anything of conversation is taboo?

:- Doug.

Read evocatively. Read your friend playfully.

:- Doug.

Stop not at story telling
Start with story hearing out fully

:- Doug.

Time? + Immerse + Explore + Unknowable (past, future, dreams, society) + Beneath + Fun + Wait! = Incomplete recipe for conversing

:- Doug.

How would your friend or spouse or grandchildren describe you?

:- Doug.

Ask your friend to play a detective and describe his bedroom.

:- Doug.

“Wait!”
Will start your conversation

:- Doug.

Develop humble-ity as your stance with others.

:- Doug.