FootprintsintheWind.com

In conversation persons don’t happen, they are made.

:- Doug.

We say things that do not stick. Could we learn from this?

:- Doug.

What happens in a multi-day conversation? Weather? Climate?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2350

After all this
study, thinking, working
it is to me
yet a mystery
how to get
how to stay
close

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© c 2024, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Doubt is a faith
Doubt conversation

:- Doug.

How may whirlpools in this river?

:- Doug.

You cannot step twice
into the same river of conversation
More largely, you can

:- Doug.

You owe it to your friend to have conversations with many others—to increase your repertoire, to increase your curtains, to increase you.

:- Doug.

We might pay attention to the variations among individuals. That is what we do daily, especially in conversation. It is what we forget to do daily in interactions with clerks, custodians, and children.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2349

Make it fun, be an imp. Implify!

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© c 2024, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

This text is alive with multiple meanings—is this but a flag of our conversation, the kind that leads to meeting?

:- Doug.

When people talk, big things happen. When persons talk, bigger things happen.

:- Doug.

Test: Is my writing changing me?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2348

It is not deeper, nor necessarily farther in where we “go.” It is just another curtain, even if less often opened, or never before opened. It might be more painful than other curtains, or less. It might be more intricate or less. Probably each curtain is just as close to home.

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© c 2024, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2347

Ourselves: we can explain, but we are utterly unable to understand.

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© c 2024, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

To find ever larger chunks of yourself, delve into ever more particular faces of your friend.

:- Doug.

The growth we seek is not magic. It comes in every conversation in which we open to a new and possibly painful falsity in what we knew for certain.

:- Doug.

If it feels mechanical, it is. Don’t keep pushing. Turn somewhere else in your conversation. Fresh paths rejuvenate.

:- Doug.

I’ve been writing to you all along as if the person opposite you is a sparkling being, full of wit and creativity and art. But he’s not. He’s complicated, confusing, moody, and boring. Most days. Until. There was you. All you have to work with is an extract of reality. All you ever have.

:- Doug.

I know my Maker is with me because my life grows more complicated. Tests are not to make one stronger but to pull out what is already inventive.

:- Doug.

The question is why we don’t understand about conversation.

:- Doug.

If you want to learn about conversation, you’ve got to study architecture, Vodou, forests, underground rivers, and octopuses. And opera. You must study opera.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2346

Conversation has the benefit of being human size. We can hear our voice. We can have it heard. We cannot get this on the national stage or even in our gatherings. We can discover and have our discovery heard with respect and awe.

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© c 2024, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com