making conversation

We should include the great thinkers of the past in our conversations and let them help us fulfill our purpose of talking about things that matter. We shouldn’t let their names or ideas become a substitution for humble curiosity.

Like metal cooling in a new shape, your expression, posture, even the cadence of your speech start to carry the imprint of the one who sees you.

as a society, we seem to dramatically undervalue the importance of human connection as a way of understanding the world, much less centering it in our information diets.

Sherry Turkle made a provocative observation in her 2016 book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. She claimed that it takes seven minutes for a conversation to really get good. In those first seven minutes, participants are mostly giving standard answers to one another’s questions. However engagened and genuine they may be,... See more

even the consumer of the conversation — the podcast listener in this case — is kind of a virtual participant, because they are witnessing the dialogue happen. That's something I feel all the time as I listen to podcasts and subconsciously formulate my own (imagined) responses in real time, as if I'm also a guest. That effect is pretty potent. I... See more

Dialectic conversation is about an exchange of views and ideas which resolves itself in consensus. The goal is to align the participants under a mutually agreed resolution they can all support from that point forwards.

Essentially, there is one right answer.

Dialogic conversation, on the other hand, isn’t about reaching a consensus. It’s about an... See more

love’s power as an act of invention, the way certain people draw out a version of you that didn’t exist before they arrived. They witness you, and thus, rearrange you. In their presence, words you didn’t know you knew tumble out. Your thoughts sharpen, colours seem richer, you inhabit yourself more fully.

We all carry endless hidden selves and... See more