When it comes, this will be the fourth message received from Alsafi in my lifetime. Few have timed their career so fortuitously. The first came when I was a child. The second came just weeks after I joined the Intercivilizational Observatory’s San Francisco office, and I wormed my way onto the analysis team. The third came the year I met Cassio, and I was doubly lovestruck. Still, I was reading responses to questions another generation had asked. But now, a full 39-year round-trip after I began, I’ll finally get answers to my questions. Ones from my youth, maybe, but they’ll be mine. After all this time, I’ll finally be In Conversation.

~ Andrew Dana Hudson, from The Weather Out There – Long Now

I find tremendous value in deep, considered conversation. Usually, a conversation about the weather isn’t such a valuable opportunity. But that conversation about the “weather” is really about the limits of what can be considered a conversation.

It’s clear that one is not having a conversation if there is zero understanding. At zero-level you don’t even realize the other is trying to communicate. At the other extreme lie those deep, considered conversations. But just how much understanding is necessary for us to say we’re in a conversation? Might the understanding requirement be low, perhaps extremely low?

If you know only that the other is trying to communicate, isn’t that enough to say a conversation is happening? Those conversations, where I am aware that I am not understanding the other, turn out to be really valuable. Perhaps it’s the Pareto principle at work: With someone I understand not at all, a tiny bit of understanding gives me a huge benefit. Perhaps it’s about unknown-unknowns: The more I make the *hunh* sound, the better.

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