Who’s playing at your jazz club?

Conversation is a musical thing, like jazz or birdsong: more ‘call and response’ than question and answer. It enables us to travel great distances, but the joy is in the journey not the destination. We are meant to sing and dance along the way, jamming with others, riffing off them, creating something new right here, right now, in a way that no one can alone.

~ Robert Poynton, from Do Conversation p119

How great is that perspective? Because, I do believe that all conversations can be jazz. The act itself leaves me changed, and that’s enough of a goal for me.

We can think of that as a lofty goal: “Gee, I hope I find myself having those sorts of conversations.” Or we can cultivate it. It’d be like building our own jazz club. We know running a jazz club would be a ton of work. The only real question is how much do we really love jazz?

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