Making space to clean up our thinking

The correct posture is preparation for uncertainty by expecting exploration and discovery.

There’s no recipe for great conversation. Sometimes we click into harmonious discourse, and sometime we don’t. No amount of preparation will guarantee success. In fact, preparation can guarantee failure. We will fail if we prepare by starting from the certainty that we are correct.

It’s difficult to determine if we are thinking correctly. We are our own echo-chamber. Depending on our personal dispositions, we each go in wildly different directions with our thoughts. Starting from the same idea, we’re each of us in a vastly different place after a few seconds of silent reflection.

A good faith conversation begins with curiosity. It looks for common ground while making room for disagreement. It should be primarily about exchange of thoughts and information rather than instruction, and it affords us, among other things, the great privilege of being wrong; we feel supported in our unknowing and, in the sincere spirit of inquiry, free to move around the sometimes treacherous waters of ideas. A good faith conversation strengthens our better ideas and challenges, and hopefully corrects, our low-quality or unsound ideas.

~ Nick Cave, from Issue № 212

Preparation from that place of self-certainty leads us to believe, falsely, that we know what the upcoming conversation should be. Having another join you shatters your personal echo-chamber if we can just be self-aware enough to notice where conversation has taken us.

The correct posture is preparation for uncertainty by expecting exploration and discovery. It’s only through cultivation of our mindset, attitude, and intention that we can approach conversation in good faith.

How can you begin to pull the wool from your own eyes?

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