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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.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2240

With a watch or a phone in view we stunt our conversations. These pull us away from entering whole heartedly into the other person, let alone the luscious between. It is about the same as scanning the room for someone better with whom to chat. We can still have short conversations, full of pith and vinegar. But we must first decide whether this person standing in need of us is more important to us than our preoccupation.

Please pass it on.

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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.