FootprintsintheWind.com

Specifics are more general than generalities. After all, they are everywhere.

:- Doug.

When someone says something different from what you meant or expected, take it as a sign you’re about to learn. Especially look for people going at a slant from you.

:- Doug.

Conversation = Courage

:- Doug.

All rumors to the contrary, humans have a limit to their imaginations. Why else would movie studios buy rights to books? Their screenwriters would have stories ever-flowing. We have apparently only a certain amount of imagination which requires a good intake of nourishment. The rest of our minds are as boring as a deepening rut in the mud. Call it the Constant of Imagination. Too much or two little and we get in trouble.

:- Doug.

This is a work of wandering, telling ourselves to stay curious.

:- Doug.

There was an arrow to our conversation, and so in some sense a theme, but that only developed as the conversation twined about us.

:- Doug.

Conversation is a creative exercise. What do we create? Persons alive. It is a messy kitchen that seldom gets cleaned up: things out of place; ingredients added in the wrong order; Food on the floor and in my hair; smears on the apron.

Lively means moving, and process. The process includes making other recipes, that is other conversations.

:- Doug.

Every person you meet provides you tentacles into a larger world. Thus you touch the world. Thus you grow the world. Thus you grow this person.

:- Doug.

If you think in this book you are going to get the key to good satisfying conversation, you will miss reality. All is stumbling. Stumbling might be the nutmeat of conversation. Of such at least is its gait.

:- Doug.

We say things outside our knowing. These are valuable if we inspect them. Not to analyze but to use as exploring sticks.

:- Doug.

Boal has written a book
Giving us some words on which
We might hitch a ride

:- Doug.

Each brings in one idea, each carries out two, usually more: conversation.

:- Doug.

The closer we get in conversing the more mysterious our other becomes. It seems ratio-like: the person is driven away by the square of the distance approached. Momentarily, wonder alights.

:- Doug.

Are we wary to actually meet another? Are we wary to meet the moment?

:- Doug.

What we need as a leader is one who will give it a steady hand. We do not need someone who is unable to stay rational for ten minutes. We do not need someone whose aim is retribution on his enemies. Those are a recipe for a careening ship of state. This is a dangerous world, and there are those who would take down the United States. We need someone who will hold us to our highest ideals. Every day, no matter the leader’s mood. This is the strength we need.

:- Doug.

Can we say “I think” and mean it? Can we not get caught up with someone the next minute saying, “That’s absurd,” or, “That’s not what you said yesterday”? To say “I think” means you are thinking here and now, not repeating what you said yesterday. You are not evaluating your thinking—for that might be a different kind of thinking, or not even thinking at all! “I think” is to report what I think just now. That is valid and valuable. It is the track of a living wild beast.

:- Doug.

Twice differently
our conversation
can be
full with
content

:- Doug.

In conversing, stories rarely have a neatly stitched ending. More often they break off, or they leave threads dangling. Like life.

:- Doug.

Contemplation is a sacrifice of time—putting person in service of larger. Conversation is as well.

:- Doug.

We could fruitfully bother each other.

:- Doug.

We can learn everywhere of conversation because conversation is everywhere.

:- Doug.

Keep a conversation journal. Learn from your conversing.

:- Doug.

Some people have a thinking cap. This is my writing cap.

:- Doug.