FootprintsintheWind.com

A purpose of conversational tasting, trying, and nosing, is to enrich our cultural, our human, repertoire. We add to our inventory of story.

:- Doug.

You’re right. If I were in your shoes, I’d feel exactly as you do.

:- Doug.

I’m not sure what this book is about. I’m less sure than when I started what conversation is about. I have some hints in the idea that persons are complexities. I have some hints in strange words like “temenos” and “Papunehang.” The edges just keep getting fuzzier.

:- Doug.

When in doubt
in a conversation
write a poem

:- Doug.

Maybe it’s not an earth-shuddering breakthrough. Maybe it is only progress. Celebrate the step made forward, back, or other-ways.

:- Doug.

People have a right to choose how revelatory they want to be, occasion by occasion. Allow it to them. Be gracious. We have a lifetime, maybe more, to get to close. Time is a construct, a Humpty-Dumpty-like invention that “means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

:- Doug.

Maybe we don’t get heard the first time because we didn’t hear ourselves fully. We don’t need double checking (by the hearer) as much as double talking (by the talker). Sometimes.

:- Doug.

We have an instinctive pull to solidarity and it is much stronger than the one for fighting. It is there in our family. It is there in our social nature. It was what we dearly missed in lock down. We submitted to lockdown for us.

:- Doug.

I’m not trying to prove anything works, but only that it is possible. Try. Do. What have you got to lose? If you don’t, only a friend you could have had.

:- Doug.

It may be there are no ultimate values hard and fast that underlie our beliefs and actions—only stories. Stories are more complex and less pinnable. We can never get to the bottom of a story. That’s its purpose: to poke us with a new stick every hearing.

:- Doug.

Name some of your selves you are today—roles, Great Great Great Grandchild, Great Great Great Grandparent, and the vast number of the rest of them.

:- Doug.

It is important to stay with the conversation—but not always in it. First, you need time to sleep. Second, you need time to steep. Third, you need other conversations. And so it goes till you come back. If you do.

:- Doug.

How does your future grow?

:- Doug.

Pier: a walking platform extending from shore out toward darker, colder waters.

:- Doug.

Those many persons we contain (but cannot hold), those many roles and complexities we are: Do we grow them in our conversation? How do we?

:- Doug.

One large gift of conversing—and meeting—is gathering. Whom and what do you gather?

:- Doug.

Three things you can easily attend—1. Is your friend up in the mouth or down? 2. Is your friend using high energy or low? 3. Is he or she trying to connect with you? Remember also to attend yourself on these questions.

:- Doug.

Do you intentionally work to align your mood (positive ←→ negative), and your energy (high ←→ low), with your friend?

:- Doug.

How do we find, feel, fit?

:- Doug.

Conversation is not simple. It is not an equation. It is not even a negotiation. It is a leaning in toward an unknowable complexity. By another complexity. It takes experience that is not consciously held, imagination, and guessing. So the morals are centered in good will.

:- Doug.

Try taking conversation in unexpected directions—to find what you can find—of each other.

:- Doug.

Perhaps it helps in coming closer together to not be the idea guy (guilty!). Rather be the first follower—the vulnerable validator.

:- Doug.

The power in the ritual of conversation is both ineffable and effective.

:- Doug.