Field Notes
Field notes explore the art of conversation through moments that linger—tensions worth examining, questions that resist easy answers. Each essay follows one thread from dialogue into something larger: how we listen, what we miss, why connection sometimes happens in the gaps between words.
Is understanding even necessary?
At zero understanding, you don’t even realize someone is trying to communicate. At the other extreme lie deep, considered conversations. But how much understanding is necessary to say we’re in a conversation? If you know only that the other is trying to communicate, isn’t that enough? Those conversations where you’re aware you’re not understanding turn… More →
Forward
Wanting to be right leads us to counter-arguments. Wanting attention leads us to take up space. But if we can hold the position of being curious about where our conversation partner wants to go, that flips our thinking and direction. It flips us to exploration, wonder, and perhaps even succeeding at communication. More →
Thinking together
What if thinking could be done with others? The theory of dialog suggests that these situations reflect a series of problems in how we think, for we have learned to think alone. And what I mean here by “thinking” involves the whole of us—our emotions, our ways of feeling in the body, our ideas, and More →
Like jazz
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 More →
Salience
Let go of self-judgement and follow your curiosity Genuine interest on our part is appreciated by all true conversation partners. Our sense of salience is a super-power. (Salience is the quality of being particularly noticeable or important.) We all have this super-power. I believe it arises from our sub-conscious when something we’re just encountering, rhymes More →
Experimentation and exploration
What has surprised you recently? That’s not a good way to live. That’s a way to live in stagnation and complacency. Great conversation is rooted in experimentation and exploration. It’s an art of discovery, and play. Great conversation is about composition: Listening to many people or ideas, and create something new. That’s common for us More →
Fishing for great conversations
Great conversations require intention and effort The difference between the negativity of bait, and the high road of a good lure is our intention. It’s true that good conversation might be stumbled into. But if we desire good conversation, then we’re going to need to seek it. Good conversation can be found, and even directly More →
Inward versus outward
Looking outward to do your inward work We must be able to think about any idea without it breaking our ability to think. Choice is at the center of everything. It’s important that we ask ourselves why we are conversing. It’d be great if we could always do that in advance, but we can settle More →
Good faith
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 More →
Connection isn’t dull
Probing for the strong points If we’re in conversation for the connection, we’ll never be bored. What is failure in a social context? I think failing to connect with others is the most important sort of failure. Our job in any social conversation isn’t to force connection. Our job is to be ready for, and More →