I am beginning to believe that most people have never had a real conversation in their life. We talk all the time, but rarely are we engaged in a conversation.
So let’s start with what I mean by examining the definition of each.
Talking Defined: Engaging in speech.
Conversation Defined: A talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged.
Talking on the court
Talking (to me) is merely a request/response kind of thing. In order to talk to someone one, we pretty much only need to understand the language they speak. I am not denouncing talking, it is useful to convey or receive information.
Sample Talk:
- Q: What time should I be there? A: About 9:00
- Q: How should I dress for the event? A: Casual, whatever you are wearing is cool
At the end of this talk, you know to be there around 9:00 dressed casually.
To participate in talking what we need to do is to hear. We hear what you say and then reply, mostly a conditioned response that mostly satisfies the person talking to you. It is mechanical and not much more.
Hearing Defined: The faculty of perceiving sounds.
I think we base our lives on talking and hearing.
We go from “she’s cute” and then engaging in friendly banner that may lead to a date, or three or five or ten.
We return to the person we are talking to basically because we like what they say to us and how what they say makes us feel. That is why for most of us cute, funny (and throw in a good job) make a person a very attractive partner and…..we look very good in pictures together.
We go to the next level and we mix in sex with the talking, which really is also mechanical when you think of it and you return to that person for the same reason you liked talking to them: You like how they make you feel.
People engage with others like this, sometimes for years and call that a relationship. Which BTW may be why the divorce rate is so high once we stop “feeling” a certain way, its over.
Why: Because you never really knew that person at all!
Oh and please get that these relationships also may not be romantic. We got friends we have around us for years that we have only just talked to.
Talking is what social media provides. A space where we get to feel right about everything in our head and if you don’t like it: Unfriend and Block, then snip what pissed you off so all my “friends” can see what an ass you are!
Problem solved, right?
Conversations on the court
Now a conversation is where life happens. In order to participate in a conversation, you need to do more than talk and hear. You need to listen and speak (and in that order).
So lets to definitions again
- Speaking Defined: The action of conveying information or expressing one’s thoughts and feelings in spoken language.
- Listening Defined: Give one’s attention to a sound
So a conversation runs deeper than talking. It involves actually engaging with another person in such a way that they feel like you got them and as a result, they will get you.
A conversation requires you to reveal who you are and listen for who the other person is.
I am totally addicted to the “Trouble don’t last always” episode of Euphoria. See clip below for sample from that episode.
What I love about this episode is that this is a REAL conversation. Just before the clip started, Rue said “I don’t plan on being here very long”.
It is so powerful in that Ali really GOT her humanity and vulnerability in that moment. He did not try to fix it, or stop her from ending herself, but because of who he was for her at that moment, she got to see the impact of what she was saying. Because he revealed himself to her (earlier in the episode), she was able to listen to what he was saying because he was authentically listening to her pain without comparing it to his own.
That is an amazing gift to give to another human being. It is also so rare!
A conversation to me is sharing our humanity with another person and in turn we get to be recognized for being human. In that sense, a conversation is somewhat spiritual in nature.
Because I connect with who you are as a human, I get what you are saying and you don’t need to explain yourself to me and I don’t have to explain myself to you. That connection will have my questions seek to dive deeper into your truth and therefore solidify our respect and acknowledgement of each other as humans.
It is a safe space where you can say what you say and I can say what I say and its ok that you said it. And even if what you said makes me angry, or sad, we are still friends because that relationship transcends how we feel.
A conversation creates a space between us where I value you because you value me. So me being angry at you does not diminish the value you have for me.
Accordingly, I think that conversations are a trigger to cure what ails our society today. We talk too damn much but we rarely have conversations with each other.
When Rue says (something like) Everyone is trying to make everyone else not seem human, this is what talking creates. A world where I make myself seem better by making someone else less than me. Or makes US better than THEM.
No wonder this is world she doesn’t want to live in. For someone who wants and seeks more, the state of this world is painful to view and a hole in their spirit.
All things are possible in a conversation. The conversations I am wanting to engage in are:
- Among Black men knowing themselves as fully human
- Among Black Men and Black Women healing the divide between them
Just having talks is not going to resolve that. We need conversations to undue hundreds of years of conditioning telling us we are not human and should be divided and why some of us are better than the other, which is why it is THEIR fault things are so messed up.
So I am willing to share my true self as I have done in other places in this blog. I am so badly wanting to have conversations with people about them.
I promise to listen!
But will you listen to me, or just hear me?
Quiet Thunder 
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