Not the people only, nor the betweens, nor that conversation as a whole system, but the whole of all that and the community out to the earth spinning in the fabric of space-time—this is what is moving, this is what is the one. Each calls the others into play—the universe calls you, you call the uni-verse.
:- Doug.
Maximize your wanderings
The spaces between bodies
Chance conversations
:- Doug.
Extremists don’t seem to like people gathering. It is, for them, nervous-making. They prefer to hide and take potshots, often literal.
:- Doug.
The conversation which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. As a man is, so he sees.
:- Doug.
How do we get “inside” another? First experience what it is to be inside yourself.
:- Doug.
Interoception is awareness of many things: breath; skin on clothes; stomach processes; gas; heartbeat; fever; scalp; hearing; taste; smell; desires; appetites.
Interoception might also be found in relatedness, history, story, currents, surrounds. Is it also in synesthesia?
:- Doug.
Person + Person → Conversation
Person + Surround → Conversation
Person and Person or Surround react to form Conversation.
:- Doug.
If compassion cannot be directly trained, but must be approached by its components, that is, slant, maybe so too conversation? For example, we might learn about our interoceptivity, extending it through imaginative faculties to what others are maybe feeling.
:- Doug.
Another exercise—pay attention during your next conversation and write about it and you and the other. What were you each doing, what happened? I know we can’t. But we can get better.
:- Doug.
Stop your conversation after a set time, say 30 minutes. Then write a slice of life about it; then reflect on that written piece.
:- Doug.
It might be valuable to entertain together a conversation in freetalking mode akin to Peter Elbow’s freewriting. Say everything that comes to mind in an exercise to see the process of talk-think, to discover what we avoid, to remove our normal filters, to become better at recognizing what is the weather of our conversation moment to moment. I think this is a different process, forcing attention as it does, at each moment, calling for permission for each of us to say things hard to hear. It is improv raised a pitch. Not only hearing what the other offers, but your “private” reaction to it, plus what seems the other’s unstated pre- and post- reactions to their offer, plus how all this veers this conversation to make a new track. Even this thought experiment, if I take it in, can open me to be alert in my next conversation.
:- Doug.
Those good in conversing see more, hear more, than those less practiced. Their attention is more finely tuned. They may develop feeling for the notes between notes, sensing for when the paths of conversation diverge. They sometimes taste the flavors they prefer, sweetness perhaps, but also the salty tang their other likes, while noting the clear newness of sweet-and-salt-making-something-unexpected.
:- Doug.
In the name of all who sing—
dogs & clouds
birds & crustaceans
leaves & my spouse
grasses & potatoes
fungi & bacteria
Gaia & lights of the night sky
:- Doug.
Every line in the painting was necessary, in the novel, in your conversation. The world shifts if it is missing, if only a bit. So stare. For 10 minutes, 20. If you can, something will happen.
:- Doug.
Conversation requires of us giving of our time and effort and attention, generous amounts without measuring. Think of the artist detailing a thousand and two tiny open circles. Leave the watch in the drawer, and the phone. Hide away where you two cannot be found. Even hide from yourselves. Then apply to this conversation the artistic way of grasping out with the eyes and ears for the whole of the world.
:- Doug.
Beware the poet
What lurks within?
Plaiting her hair
As it grows out of her breath
And now her fingertips
:- Doug.
Of when we sit and see and speak
gives most life
fish and plankton in a dark below
perceiving us aesthetically
perceiving all aesthetically
:- Doug.
The conversation grows
When generously given
Months & weeks & decades
Fit and right
The tests and obstacles
:- Doug.
Conversation serves the larger community by unearthing some of what is possible.
:- Doug.
Conversation is part of the significant life of the community. So we do well to seek to make our conversations significant.
:- Doug.
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