Great conversation rocks my world.
Many a night I have listened, and chatted with friends, old and new, until the sky is streaked with deep purple, and orange, and the glimmering sun begins to rise. Talking and listening. Thinking. Having conversations that go on all night. Oh, I love them, conversations full of questions, that we might never find the answer too, but that are endlessly fascinating to think about or discuss.
I am still having conversations with friends that were started decades ago. We start something, unpick it, leave it, come back to it, think about it, challenge each other. We widen our minds, and open up to a new way of thinking. I adore it. Not every conversation I have is like this, but the one's that are, I love.
MINDS WIDE OPEN - how that idea entralls me, challenges me, inspires me, gives me energy. Open to possibilities, to the wonders of the world, to what we can learn or takeaway from our interconnectedness.
These conversations aren't necessarily about who is right or wrong, although they can get heated, they are about the exchange, of ideas, and thoughts. A desire to fathom, and think about the world we live in. Right or wrong rarely comes into it because it isn't personal it is about the desire to think, and think deeply, to respond to words, or ideas. Things that often challenge us to our core.
I understand that not everyone has the wish, the interest, the desire, the want, the need or perhaps even capacity for such conversation as this. Plus if we were to talk like this all the time it would get tiring, boring even. Dull.
IT'S NOT ABOUT RIGHT OR WRONG, it's not about offence - BUT THOUGHTS, IDEAS, SUGGESTIONS, POSSIBILITIES...
But sometimes, great conversation, as nothing more than an intellectual argument, as well as rocking my world, brings great sparkle to my day, and many of my friends. We ponder for the desire to do nothing but ponder or think, not to prove the other wrong, but to ponder. I know there is a time and place for this, and I realise not everyone wants these conversations. I in no way am trying to enforce a degree that we all must have deep and meaningful conversations 24/7/365.
When I lived in CS Lewis house 'The Kilns' I was inspired on a daily basis about the great conversation that Lewis would have had with Wardie, Toilken, Sayers, Barfield, Williams - to name a few of the 'The Inklings'. As I wandered around the house, and the gardens, sat in the kitchen or Lewis's study, lay in my bed I imagined the conversations that would have existed there between these great minds. In my head I pretended to be a fly on the wall, imaging what they might have discussed. How long the conversations went on for, how they discussed things, what they said to each other. Through reading about them, I know that they returned to ideas again, and again, challengeing each other. Poking, probing, questions. A nudge to the mind, to think about something differently, a challenge that rocked the foundations of one's thinking, a quiet agreement, the wonder at how someone else could reach that opinion, and a sip of bitter.
Heaven, Hell, Wardlaw, the ring, hobbits, poetry, Narina, language, syntax - ideas, thoughts, wonders, dreams, Aslan, the wardrobe, the white witch, deeper magic, resurrection, rebirth, life ...
Endlessly they could have talked, discussed these ideas, and from what I have read about them, endlessly they did. Even just thinking about them talking, walking among the spires, and colleges, the bicycles, and gowns, makes me smile.
Lastnight on my Facebook feed, I put the comment -
'Humans are the only animals who will follow unstable pack leaders.'
What does this instantly tell us?
That animals have a better instinct than humans for finding and following the right leaders? What animals don't let madmen become leaders? That animals are faithful from the top down?
Or maybe - are humans animals? What's the difference between a human and an animal? Can animals think? Humans are better than animals? Animals are made for our consumption? Humans are above animals? Animals are not human? Animals are animals?
The possibilities are simply endless, and fascinating to me.
My post didn't get to these questions, instead it sparked some interesting reactions. What struck me most, however, was the immediate desire, some felt to tell me the comment was wrong, or at least the first bit, that we as humans are animals. Many of the responses I got didn't want to engage in conversation, just to tell me I was wrong.
Everyone is right. Everyone has the opportunity to engage or not engage with an idea. It's a person choice.
Everyone spoke from their own point of view which I respect.
But what really struck me was the immediacy of the desire for some to tell me I was wrong.
A gut reaction to the quotation - trust your gut, its always right. Yes, I would agree, but just because we agree with something, or disagree, or have a gut reaction, or see it an idea as fundamentally right or wrong, does not mean we cannot engage with it as a statement, an idea or a thought. The statement doesn't challenge our worldview, we do that to ourselves.
Did people, feel challenged, by that quotation? Where they offended? Did they feel threatened, or they feel their beliefs have been attacked, by a comment that they disagreed with? Did they attack my posting of it in their desire to defend themselves and their point of view?
I truly don't know, all I know is that I found the response very interesting. For me it sparked a whole other question - our responses to what is written on FB. The instant world we live in. But, that's for another post.
'Attack is the first form of defense' - (Professor Brian Black) - words of wisdom that my uncle gave me as a young child, that I have found time and time again, to be true.
From all the replies I received - both public and private responses - only one person got past the first part of the sentence. Engaging in the conversation at what to me was deeper level, the part that most fascinated me. Thinking about not about the idea that people might be classified as animals, but the thought that humans follow unstable leaders - Mau, Hitler, Stalin ( a few 20th Century madmen) - whereas animals don't. Why? My facebook post responses didn't get to the why of the quotation lastnight, but in my mind, I have played with the why of those words all day.
It sparked endless questions in my mind like -
Why do animals not follow unstable leaders? Why do humans follow unstable leaders? What is a stable leader to a human? What is a stable leader to an animal? Do they share the same characteristics? Do animals have a keener instinct for survival? Can they spot a despot leader, in a way that many humans can't? Is it because humans have the ability to reason in a different way, that perhaps gives them an intellectual type of freedom, that animals don't have? Do animals have the ability to reason? Why do we as humans follow certain ideas? What can animals teach us about leadership? What about the hold that certain leaders have over their followers? How do certain people attract us to their worldview, that we can follow without questioning? Or do we question, but decide its safer to be quiet?
I don't have any answers, but I'd love to talk about the questions with you.
Personally whether we see ourselves, as animals or not, makes for great, and very interesting conversation. The right or wrong I think it is more dualistic approach, that limits thinking, but also makes for what could be stimulating conversation. Of course we can have our own ideas about what is right or wrong, but rather than simply stating them, isn't it more fun to engage with an idea? To think outside the box.
No everyone will agree with me, not everyone will want this conversation, and that's okay. But for me, I enjoy it, not everyday, but lots of days.
There are so many places this quotation could lead us - what do you think ...
That's it for now ...
Nics
Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable
by Nics
