Creating Conversations of Ideas
I desire different conversations than most people I know - or so I think. I have little interest in news or in personal stories or in sports or in politics or any of the conversation topics that seem to be the most common. I consider them useful only insofar as they can act as stepping stones to more abstract conversations.
To me, the stimulating conversation is always a conversation of ideas. I want to discuss concepts, frameworks, arguments, and methodology; how to understand the world; how think about living in it. The mere exchange of facts or opinions, to me, is incredibly dull.
Unfortunately, I find it quite difficult to create such conversations by my own hand. I do not know how to start them reliably. Usually, I am dependent on being able to draw a general point from a concrete one and in this way raise the level of abstraction. I find such a manoeuvre easier in 1on1s where both parties give each other their full attention and where we have built a shared context that supports the progression. In groups, it is more difficult - in large groups, it feels impossible.
I wonder if this blog can come to my aid. Perhaps developing and sharing my ideas here can set me up for having more inspiring conversations in the future by offering my conversation partners a way in. Perhaps they, too, desire an abstract conversations but do not know where to start. If so, my blog could offer a set of hooks to grasp for. No more is needed than to comment on a blog post of mine and, suddenly, we are thrust into an abstract conversation about a topic we are both likely to be interested in.
I think this plays well with my natural tendency towards defence rather than offence. By this I mean: I have not yet developed a habit of proactively and deliberately spawning the kinds of conversations I like to engage in. Whenever I succeed in doing so, it is usually tactical rather than strategic; I can react to the topic and take it up a notch or I can draw a parallel and shift the conversation onto a neighbouring lane. But it is a rare thing for me to cold start an abstract conversation by, for example, sharing a take on something without a prompt or prompting someone else to share their take on a topic without a natural link to something that went prior.
I could, of course, develop this habit of going on the offence much further. I could practice having topics in my mind that I would like to talk about and putting them out there when an opportunity arises. I fear it will feel forced but it is entirely possible that this is just a matter of getting used to a new mode of operating. I have, I must admit, succeeded in spawning some quite interesting conversations with such a strategy before - usually by sharing a point from some book I had just read.
I guess I should build this habit regardless. It is so small an investment for me to prepare a few talking points before I meet with someone and to keep these ready at hand during the conversation. The potential returns, however, are surely great.
At the same time, I will keep sharing my ideas on this blog for other reasons. I will be curious to see whether these posts can one day facilitate even more of the conversations I prefer. The blog can, perhaps, become a kind of asset whose return comes in the form of greater conversations started by everyone else than me. This alone would justify its existence - though its purpose is something else.