The Case for Conversation

Well, hello again, friends. There you are. And here I am. This is Dick Foth with stories to make sense of it all. As we head into chapter four of our book known, Finding Deep Friendships in a Shallow World, the subject is conversation. Actually, it's called the case for conversation. And I'm going to ask for some help from a couple of friends. Well, one is not actually my friend, but I like him. His name is Mark Twain. And the other one is Jason Inman, who is my grand nephew. He's my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's son, one of them. And we're just going to chat about what conversation looks like midway into the reading of the chapter. So, here we go. Chapter four, the case for conversation. Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other. So, we can have some conversation. Mark Twain. Samuel Langhorn Clemens, known to most of us as Mark Twain, was a riverboat pilot, a journalist, lecturer, and an inventor. He was born on November 30, 1835 and died on April 21, 1910. Unsurprisingly, the America he lived in and experienced was vastly different from the America we know today. And although I have no idea in what context Twain said this, it sounds like something that could have been written yesterday. But I didn't know better I think he pulled from a blog somewhere. And his words are so relevant because we live in a day of communication without conversation. And we all know conversation is the basis for any relationship. I reflect again on the exchange with the young man who said, I'm connected to several dozen people through Facebook and Twitter. I just don't know how to start a conversation. I heard that statement as both a confession and a kind of plea. How do we talk to each other? Well, historically, the family dinner table has been the safe place for unending conversation. Since in many quarters, that table has vanished. How do I learn to converse? Sherry Terkel distills the challenge of the lost table. We need family conversations because of the work they do, beginning with what they teach children about themselves and how to get along with other people. To join in conversation is to imagine another mind, to empathize and to enjoy gesture and humor and irony in the medium of talk. As with language, the capacity to learn these human subtleties is innate. So here I am with my grand FU Jason Inman from Oklahoma City. Hello, Jason. Hey, good to be with you. I'm calling you because you had a significant family and by significant large. So you are up with how many siblings? I am the youngest of seven boys. The youngest of seven boys and you're still surviving. How's therapy going? Well, mostly my job pace for most of it. So I'm good. So you're the youngest of seven boys. How old are you now? I'm 34. And you're married and you have children of your own. Christie and I have five kids. Oldest is, will be 12 probably by the time this airs. Right. And then all the way down to three, three years old. So it's a party here too. I'm going to say it's just be the light all day long, fabulous. So here's my question. What was your dinner table like? And then I want to talk to you about conversation because seven boys, it's got to be a scramble of fight or whatever. Just talk to me about that a little bit. It was always lively. So here's a good story. And I actually do remember this. When I was very young, I would have been three or four. We're sitting around the table and another hot item was that there was never any kind of bread. You know, that'd go fast. So the bread, the bread is passing around the table and there's seven boys, you know, both my parents, everybody's getting their piece of bread. And I'm at the end of the table and the bread's at the other end. And in my little voice, I say, can somebody please pass the bread? Nobody hears me. You know, bread doesn't move. It's not getting any closer. Again, you know, can somebody please pass the bread? And I say this over and over. It gets louder. Can somebody please pass the bread? Nobody's, you know, somebody's probably telling about their day and everybody's talking over each other. You know, it's just that life of the table. I finally scream just this blood-curdling scream at the top of my lungs. And I kid you not. It breaks a glass at the other end of the table. We actually talked to a, my parents talked to a scientist about it. And he said, well, was the glass a different shape on the inside as it was on the outside? And sure enough, it was just kind of like an octagon on the outside. And anyways, broke a glass with a scream to try to get above the noise of the table. So yeah, yeah, that gives you a picture. But I'm trying to do in this podcast is make a point about the value of conversation at the dinner table and what you're telling me is to make him with gladiators at the circus maximus in Rome, which may be more true of dinner tables with numbers of kids than conversation. So how much in the course of your dinner conversation and you had hundreds of dinners together and your mom was nutritious before nutritious was cool. Yep. All of that. Did your dad or your mom manage the conversations? Did they toss any questions out? Did anything like that? That is a good question. I'm trying to think about that. I guess it's good that it just I remember it just kind of happening. You know, that means that it was maybe just became pretty normal for us to just talk. I know now that I'm a parent and I've got five kids at the table. My go to is to, hey, what's something that happened in your day today that surprised you? Or, you know, did anybody talk to you today or I just try to ask different questions every night at the dinner table? And so yeah, we do ask questions now. Sounds like every, every boy sort of brought whatever it was. They had an interest in to the table at that moment. Would that be right? So it was organic in that way. Yeah. You know, I specifically thinking about the dinner table. You know, I guess one thing that's easy for me to remember, it wasn't a, you know, heated political conversation or it wasn't, it was never a negative place. It was always very much, I just, I just remember it growing up being kind of just like a place of connection. You know, this is kind of like home base, a safe place. What do you think about the idea? And I'll stop with this. What do you think about the idea that dinner table conversation is a place of learning that's intuitive? It isn't a classroom in the strict sense, but it is a classroom in the organic sense. What do you think about that? Just watching my own kids, even my experience, you know, growing up, you'll see one kid that will kind of share some idea or some thought or about their day. And it's only seconds before the next one wants to share their version of that experience. Or, oh, dad, dad, dad, here's what happened with me. Or even, you know, we pray together at the table, right? Now my three year old, as soon as you start praying, he just starts praying over the top of you. It's like, man, I'm sure God can, God, you can hear both of us at the same time, but because he's seeing that, he's modeling it. It's interesting to him. And I think one of the things, if it's a classroom, one of the things that it's teaching is probably a little bit of empathy, right? Because if I'm going to sit down and I'm going to listen to someone else's day, and how it felt to them to do whatever the thing they did and what their conversations were about, you know, whether it's two other people at the table or seven other people at the table, I suddenly have a window into all these other lives and all these other feelings and all these other thoughts. And so maybe there's something about the classroom that brings empathy. I'm sure there's other pieces too, but that's something I take away from it. And I think in this day, when the, you know, you start reading today, you can't read very far without having some article by somebody from Harvard or an Ivy League or Stanford or University of London talk about emotional intelligence, which is essentially empathy is that I can sense who you are, where you are, walking your shoes. Well, Jason, thanks for taking time out of your evening. I'm speaking to you in the evening. Yeah. In Oklahoma City. Thanks for taking time out to chat with me about this. Please give Christy a hug and say hi to those kids for us. And we look forward to you coming through Colorado on the way to see your parents, hopefully in the summertime. Yep. And thank you for listening to me. I didn't even have to scream at you. You know, I saw, I saw one of our light bulbs shaking for a moment. Thank you. Thanks, man. Be cool. When kids converse like that, they begin to find pleasure in being heard and understood. They begin to learn empathy, the ability to put oneself in another person's place. They start to sense the other person's feelings. They discover that family conversation is protected space and conversations can have commas in them. It is that arena in which children can talk through feelings rather than just act on them. Or if the family table still exists, studies are showing the children who quite naturally compete for their parents' attention. Now have to compete with all those incoming calls and texts. In an ironic twist after 20 plus years of digital devices, the pendulum seems to be swinging. It's the children who are beginning to ask parents to stay away from their devices during family time, a device-free zone. By the time children reach two years of age, they generally have a tabularies of two to three hundred words. That's not much, but it's plenty for communicating. There's a boatload of verbal interaction among those preschoolers, but today devices of every kind are king. It is a digital universe, and we can never go back even if we wanted to. Might the art and joy of real open-ended take your chances conversation be leaking away? If so, how do we learn how to do life going forward? Conversation is a huge factor in learning empathy. An empathy emotional intelligence is one of the most practical needs in today's world. When we talk to each other, we learn the worth of another's feelings, how to talk those feelings through, how to understand and respect other people. That requires the capacity to be authentic and vulnerable. Two qualities that young people today desire the most from their elders. Social media, however, teaches something completely different. Instead of promoting the value of authenticity, it encourages performance. Instead of teaching the rewards of vulnerability, it suggests that you put on your best face. And instead of learning how to listen, you learn what goes into an effective broadcast. We posed a question to a couple who work with young people from middle school through young professional age. How connected does social media make us? They thought for a few moments, then said, it's not so much about connecting as it is about comparing and positioning. I thought, what's wrong with that? The world isn't comparison and positioning mode all the time. They explained social media is not about connection. It's about status. Kids often brag about how many Instagram friends they have. They'll make comments like, I don't let just anyone follow me. The problem with that way of thinking is that perceived comparison is the thief of joy. Kids focus on whatever their lives are or where they should be or what they want and don't have. Then they put a filtered version of their life on the internet that they can carry. The person seeing it doesn't think it's filtered. The differences are quantified by seeing what they're not included in, seeing everyone's picture-perfect life compared to their own boring ones. The internet gives you access to a world of knowledge and social media gives you access to a personal world of one-dimensional connections. That can really start messing with your head. Instead of adding to your life and helping you connect with those around you, it can lessen your capacity to deal with real life and to seek face-to-face interactions instead of helping you build a community and grow meaningful friendships. You find yourself overwhelmed with information and more isolated than before. So where do you go from there? Where can you turn when simultaneously you feel overwhelmed by what you know and you feel unsure about who you know? The view from Eden. Let's go back to Eden for a minute. Struck me in writing this chapter that Eden was about that very thing. God had a conversation with Adam and Eve about knowledge boundaries, but they took matters into their own hands, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge overwhelmed them and disconnected them from God. To be clear, their core problem was at disobedience because they had been told not to do something and then they turned right around, did it. But the net effect of their action is fascinating. What they thought they would be getting. Knowledge in control disrupted the very thing for which they were created. Authentic relationship. They hadn't paid attention to the conversation that set the boundaries for the best relationship anyone could ever have. So if conversations are the fabric of relationship, how do I learn to have meaningful one? Celeste Headley, a radio journalist from Georgia, gave a TED Talk title. Ten ways to have a better conversation, which at this writing has been viewed almost 4 million times. She began by asking the question, is there any 21st century skill more important than being able to sustain a coherent, confident conversation? As a professional interviewer, she suggests using the 10 basic rules for a good interview. One, don't multitask or be half in. Be present. Two, assume you have something to learn. Don't pontificate. Three, use open-ended questions. Who, what, when, where, why, and how? Let the person describe things. Four, go with the flow. Let stories and ideas come and go. Five, if you don't know, say you don't know. Six, don't equate your experience with theirs. Seven, try not to repeat yourself. Eight, stay out of the weeds. People don't care about dates, etc. Nine, listen. Listening is the number one most important skill. We like to talk, but our brains only allow us to talk at 225 words per minute. We can listen at 500 words per minute. Ten, finally, be brief and prepare to be amazed. When I listened to her thoughts, I was struck by the practicality of them. Anyone can converse that way, and these practices are totally doable, even for those of us who struggle with striking up and maintaining good conversations, even if you landed on just five of the ten things. It would make a huge difference in how you engaged with others. The one another experience. The give and take of conversation makes for mutuality. Scripture described such mutual engagement with two words, one another. Jesus, of course, championed that practice to his followers when he told them, were two or three agreed together in his name, he would be present. It is a practice encouraged again and again in the New Testament. 59 times to be precise. Here's what it sounds like. Love each other, John 1517. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love Romans 1210. Honor one another above yourselves, Romans 1210. Live in harmony with one another, Romans 1260. Stop passing judgment on one another, Romans 1430. Except one other, then just as Christ accepted you, Romans 157. Instruct one another, Romans 1514. Speak to one another with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, Ephesians 519. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ Ephesians 521. All these experiences are rooted in conversation. All of them take a sincere interest in the other person. All of them require listening and responding. All of them need authenticity and vulnerability. From our earliest days we work at communicating with those closest to us some wit in years past, even observed, babies speak several languages before they find one their parents could understand. But those babies soon acquire the skill for conversation and are off to the races. The capacity to think clearly and share ideas is foundational for all that follows. Flying into San Jose, California from these coast of few years ago, my seatmates were CEOs from two computer firms in Boston. Since I was working as a college administrator at the time I asked, what majors do you hire out of college, business administration or computer science? They said hardly any business administration and only some in computer science. Mostly we hire English majors. Wow, really I said why? Because English majors have been taught to think critically and are able to speak and write their thoughts in a succinct manner. Our industry is built around teams and conversing clearly is very important to us. We can always teach them the technical stuff. When real conversation happens, it doesn't get very far before anecdotes and stories start being told. And when conversations turn to storytelling, the real person begins to stand up. God knows that's true. That's how he made us. The creator who speaks the universe into being is the best talker of all. And he is the best storyteller by a country mile. Let me read that last paragraph one more time as we get ready to sign off here. When real conversation happens, it doesn't get far before anecdotes and stories start being told. And when conversations turn to storytelling, the real person begins to stand up. God knows that's true. That's how he made us. The creator who speaks the universe into being is the best talker of all. And he is the best storyteller by a country mile. Next time we're together, we're going to start a section called storytellers. And the tagline is story is the soil from which friendship grows. And our last time together, I said friendship was like one of my top three areas that I like to think about and talk about. Story may be almost number one. I mean, it's right up there. So when we're together next time, it'll be about story. And I'll look forward to that. Until then, if you wanted to slide over to look at our website known.fm, that'd be great. And if you wanted to reach out through social media to ask a question, make a comment, be pleased to hear from you. So God bless you. And whatever you do, keep the conversation going. Okay? Catch you later. Bye-bye.