talking without speaking...........

 

     One of the problems he had with living alone was all the talking to himself, talking without speaking and occasionally deluding himself into thinking that he was actually talking to someone else.

-Richard Price, Lazarus Man

Remember: Always bet on the optimist...............

.........................Kevin Kelly TED talks the future

 

Unfortunately.............................

 Mark Twain said kids provide the most interesting information, “for they tell all they know and then they stop.” Adults tend to lose this skill. 

-Morgan Housel, from this post

Good advice...................

"Talk to yourself like you would talk to someone you love."
-Brene Brown

Crucial..............................

"Some of the most crucial conversations you will ever have will be with yourself.   Slow down sufficiently to make this possible."
-as extracted from here

It is a complicated world.....................

Ben Casnocha spends some time in Germany.   Here is his report.  A wee excerpt here:

NSA spying on German officials, including Merkel’s cell phone, came up over and over again. All of the Americans on the trip were surprised at how upsetting the spying scandal was to the German government and German people. Although I don’t know what the Americans gained through the spying operation, it seems incredibly unlikely that the benefits outweighed the costs. The damage to the trust and cooperation between the two countries appears to be immense. “Are we friends or just partners?” This is a question Germans asked over and over. There’s a difference in their minds. Friends cooperate in all sorts of ways that partners would not; friends do not spy on each other.

Rules of Conversation..........................

128.   Avoid company where it is not profitable or necessary; and in those occasions speak little, and last.

129.   Silence is wisdom, where speaking is folly;  and always safe.

130.   Some are so foolish as to interrupt and anticipate those that speak, instead of hearing and thinking before they answer; which is uncivil as well as silly.

131.   If you think twice, before you speak once, you will speak twice the better for it.

132   In all debates, let truth be your aim, not victory, or an unjust interest.  Endeavor to win over to your side, rather than to expose your antagonist.

-William Penn,  Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims  1682

Kind of quiet around here...................

Should be easy enough........................

“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals.  Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen.  Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this.  Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future.  With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded.  All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.” 
-Stephen Hawking

Imagine a conversation.......................

The hay in the loft 
misses the night sky,
so the old roof
leaks a few stars.

Rain clouds gone,
and muddy paw prints
on the moon.

I've never learned from experience.
What else is there? you ask.
How about ninety billion galaxies.

What is it that the wind has lost
that she keeps looking for 
under each leaf?

I grow older.
I still like women, but mostly
I like Mexican food.

Sleeping on my right side I think
of God.  On my left side, sex.
On my back, I snore with my dog.

Some nights are three nights long,
some days a mere noon hour, then whistled
back to work, the heart dredging sludge.

The nightmare we waken from,
grateful, is somebody else's life.

Mirrors have always given the wrong
impression of me.   So do other people.
So do I.  Let's stop this right here.

-as excerpted from Braided Creek:  A Conversation in Poetry between Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison.
Back story here

Are you listening to me.............................?

via

I have................................

"I have never been hurt by anything I didn't say."
-Calvin Coolidge

Since we're really not listening.................

does it really matter........................?

The conclusion she’s arrived at while researching her new book is not, technically, that we’re not talking to each other. We’re talking all the time, in person as well as in texts, in e-mails, over the phone, on Facebook and Twitter. The world is more talkative now, in many ways, than it’s ever been. The problem, Turkle argues, is that all of this talk can come at the expense of conversation. We’re talking at each other rather than with each other.

As Andrew Sullivan quotes Megan Garber in this blog post.

Of course it matters...............................

The importance, and messiness, of real communication...............

Conversations, as they tend to play out in person, are messy—full of pauses and interruptions and topic changes and assorted awkwardness. But the messiness is what allows for true exchange. It gives participants the time—and, just as important, the permission—to think and react and glean insights. “You can’t always tell, in a conversation, when the interesting bit is going to come,” Turkle says. “It’s like dancing: slow, slow, quick-quick, slow. You know? It seems boring, but all of a sudden there’s something, and whoa.”

As excerpted from this essay by Megan Garber about Sherry Turkle (and her work) in The Atlantic.

Keep going.......................................

“This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don’t jump in on your sentences, saving you from actually finishing them, or talk over you, allowing what you do manage to get out to be lost or altered in transit. Instead, they wait, so you have to keep going.” 
-Sarah Dessen

cartoon via

Cicero, on the how-to of public speaking.........

"A leading speaker will vary and modulate his voice, raising and lowering it and deploying the full scale of tones.  He will avoid extravagant gestures and stand impressively erect.  He will not pace about and when he does so not for any distance.  He should not dart forward except in moderation with strict control.  There should be no effeminate bending of the neck or twiddling of his fingers or beating out the rhythm of his cadences on his knuckles.  He should extend his arm at moments of high dispute and lower it during calmer passages....Once he has made sure he does not have a stupid expression on his face and or a grimace, he should control his eyes with great care, for as the face is the image of the soul the eyes are its translators.  Depending on the subject at hand they can express grief of hilarity."

Flow.................................

Cultural Offering nurtures the Art of Satisfying Conversation.  The only thing he left out was the importance of fine cigars and Wild Turkey American Honey over ice.

To speak.........................

......................or not to speak?     That is the question.

The Execupundit has tallied the answer.

Rohn...............................

"Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion."
-Jim Rohn

"Economic disaster begins with a philosophy of doing less and wanting more."
-Jim Rohn

Not sure how I missed it, but yesterday would have been Rohn's 83rd birthday.  Faithful readers will remember that I have long been a Jim Rohn fan.

A conversation in poetry...................

How one old tire leans up against
another, the breath gone out of both.

Old friend,
perhaps we work too hard
at being remembered.

Which way will the creek 
run when time ends?
Don't ask me until
this wine bottle is empty.

While my bowl is still half full,
you can eat out of it too,
and when it is empty,
just bury it out in the flowers.

All those year
I had in my pocket,
I spent them,
nickel-and-dime.

Each clock tick falls
like a raindrop,
right through the floor
as if it were nothing.

In the morning light,
the doorknob, cold with dew.

The Pilot razor-point pen is my
compass, watch, and soul chaser.
Thousands of miles of black squiggles.

Under the storyteller's hat
are many heads, all troubled.

-Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison
Braided Creek:  A Conversation in Poetry
back story here