The Forgotten Power of Conversation
I was just talking about this very same topic with a friend last weekend. As always, it seems that someone else is always able to explain what I’m thinking much more eloquently than I ever could.
Conversation is becoming a lost art, replaced by endless talk. To converse is to share ideas and learn from one another in the process. It demands listening and talking in equal degrees. Talk is one-way. All those people endlessly talking into their cellphones, the TV chat shows, the instant pundits on any topic, all of them talk without ceasing yet rarely pause to listen. We live surrounded by constant chatter that amounts to little more than fear of silence.
Go to any meeting in any organization. What will you discover? People who spend their time between talking thinking about what to say next. People eagerly seizing on someone else’s words purely as the excuse for talking themselves. Decisions made before the meeting ever takes place. No one listens. No one is open to persuasion. Attendees are briefed to take a position, regardless of what’s said after they arrive. Like politicians toeing the party line, they have open mouths and tightly shut minds.
Read more: lifehack.org » The Forgotten Power of Conversation
November 10th, 2005 at 12:01 am
True, so very true. Listening is a science, and requires much more skill and discipline, than talking. Unfortunately, many people live for sound bites, and quips. It sucks.
Patience, is a virtue … part of patience is being patient enough to let the other moron finish his blabbing, and then waiting and processing what he said before speaking. It’s ok to not know, it’s actually easier to say “I don’t know”, rather than having an answer for everything.
Unfortunately, we’ve been taught that not knowing is a sign of stupidity, so we’re afraid not to know, hence we continue to talk, but we end up revealing how much we don’t know when we do that.