Archive for the ‘conversation’ Category
How to Tell Yourself the Truth (Hint: Start with an insult)
Where’s John the Baptist when you need him?
John’s task was to prepare the way of the Lord. That looked and sounded like insults to a crowd already well aware of the law and prophets and how to navigate the ancient texts. It’s just that the crowd’s navigation allowed them to do what they wanted while ignoring the invigorating spirit of the texts.
Thus John’s insults.
It’s easy and natural to take insults as insults (that is the intention, after all). But to see them as opportunities? That actually happens to most of us: insults become opportunities…ten years later. It takes ten years, or maybe twenty, to see the truth of what that busybody meddler said. And then in conversation with a friend or your grown-up kid or spouse you find yourself saying, “They were actually spot-on, though I denied it at the time.”
A few days ago an acquaintance called me out on one my typical innocuous and benign conversations about copywriting and communication—he resisted my assertions and would not back down. His insult landed wide of the mark and made no sense to anyone else either, but it got me thinking about my approach to a particular set of clients I work with. In fact, my acquaintance’s sharp barb started to reveal a truth about my approach that has since proved quite useful.
This is atypical.
I usually spend a decade stewing on an insult and devising comebacks and elaborate retributions. But what would life be like if I/we could be more open-handed about criticism?
That might help us grow beyond our blind spots—which might prove useful.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
Counterintuitive: Listening Beats Talking?
Persuader Vs. The Persuaded
The Russian polymath Mikhail Bakhtin—one of the titanic minds of the twentieth century, though too neglected now—believed that in a dialogue the position of primacy is with the person who listens rather than the one who first speaks. After all, he said, we do not speak unless we anticipate a response; and we shape what we say in light of possible reactions.
–Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (NY: Oxford University Press, 2011) 55
Without some listener—you see—there would be no words launched.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
Cottonwood and Woolgathering
Many small impressions add to something—or not.
Cottonwood is everywhere this time of year in Minnesota. When driving at night, it looks like a snowstorm—light reflects off the airborne wooly-white so you ask yourself “What season is this?” Cottonwood catkins collect in inconvenient places (Example A). With all these loose seeds flying about, it’s a wonder Cottonwood trees are not sprouting from every bit of available soil.
Example A.
June cottonwood blizzards remind me of the collection of loose fears and wonderments that have been rolling through my brain lately. Little silences and absences that mean nothing until they gather into a solid-seeming impression. My friend whose cancer is in remission but whom I have not heard from for a long time. Couples I have not talked to together for many months. The out of work friend (s)—what are they doing and why have I not asked them?
As I combat cottonwood seeds today, I think I’ll see how my friend is doing.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
conversation is an engine 