unseriously serious
Why so serious
Conversations these days seem to require a specific purpose, where someone’s motivation to engage is inexplicably tied to how much they may continue to benefit from the exchange once it’s ended. People want to walk away with something “useful,” something that can be acted upon. But this diminishes time spent in ways that can’t be explicitly articulated to being “wasted.”
Why do we do this?
Perhaps it stems from our modern obsession with optimisation. A belief that a conversation is as valuable as the productivity it fuels.
I’m not talking about the lack of deep, meaningful conversations. I’m talking about silly conversations. The kind that lead to nowhere, that aren’t even grounded in the physics of this earth to make them plausibly realistic.
Children are particularly good at them. You probably had plenty. In fact, this was likely at one point your primary conversation type.
The “what if” conversations.
They usually start with a question; something commonplace and not often brought to the foreground, like “why is the sky blue?”
Then it pivots: “what if the sky was pink?”
What tends to follow is a list of absurd and pointless things that might change about the world i fthe latter were true.
The truth is the sky will likely never be pink. So why imagine a world in which it is?
Can’t sit with boredom. Can’t sit with uselessness. Why is boredom bad? Why is time inexplicably spent bad? Do we need to explain everything, all the time? Why can’t we just ... be ?
What i’m talking about isn’t deep, meaningful conversations (those are lacking too, but I think for slightly different reasons). What i’m talking about is silly conversations. Conversations that lead to no where and aren’t even grounded in a the physics of this earth that make them even plausibly realistic. I’m talking about the “what if” conversations. You may remember them from when you were a child. You probably had plenty. Heck, this was probably your primary conversation type.
It can start with a question. Something commonplace and not often brought to the foreground. “Why is the sky blue?”
Then it goes something like this: “What if the sky was pink?”
What tends to follow this is a list of things that might change about the world if the latter were true. It is absurd, and it is pointless.
The truth is the sky will likely never be pink. So why imagine a world in which it is?
You could come up with some reasons why this might be useful. You’re practicing idea generation. Even if the sky never turned pink, contemplating that scenario might help you udnerstand why it is blue. Or appreciate the world as it is. But really, why bother? Can a conversation ever just...be?
enable their that can make their actualities
the modern obsession with optimising everything explains this tendency.
extent to which they continue to benefit from it once it’s ended. Dialogue has come to be treated as transactional, and therefore, an inufficient end in itself. People demand to walk away with something “useful,” as if afting as if an inability to name an obvious, action Because of this, it is treated as an insufficient end in itself. People want to come away from conversations with something “useful.” Something they can act upon. As if an inability to name the obvious result renders their time wasted.
But everything doesn’t need to have a purpose. We seem to have forgotten that.
There are three ways people usually approach conversations. The first, most common type is from a place of judgement. Usually they i’mpose their own standards onto their interlocuotr, regardless of wehther they tehmselves meet tehm or not, and if the interlocuotr failes, they move on, disinterested.
The second way is curiosity. It’s more rare to find people capable of approaching others from a plce of geniuine cuiritosity. it requires an open mindedness to being wrong, and a willingness to change your mind on the spot. This is probably more rare because it requires more thinking. You actually need to think about what the other person is saying, itneralise it against your own framwork, and decide whether if fits or not, how it fits in, and articulate a response based on your context, as well as articulating the context form which you are coming and disclosing your biases. These are fun conversations to have. People who are curious and open make for wondreful ocnversationalists, but these conversations are also quite tirning. I can only do this for about 3 hours until I become mentally exhausted and can no logner keep up with everything that’s been constructed.
Then there’s the third, most rare type. Grownups seem to struggle iwth this one the most (children are great at it!). These are the fun conversations. They don’t really have a point. You make up absurd scenarios, build an entire world with someone, and insert a bunch of different scenarios into it. These conversations will have you in fits of laughter. THey are the conversations you have as a child, but with adult reasoning ability. For example, asking what if the sky was pink. And i’maginging everything that would happen if that was the case. What colour, then, would be ebst for the grass? the trees? the ocean? would teh ocean be deep red? what colour, then, would blood be? or would it remain the same? It’s absurd. There’s no point.
they can’t name the ob result,
This tendency goes beyond simple transactional, networky questions like “What do you do for work?” The bigger problem is taht conversations have become arenas for assessment. Whether the qustion is overt like the one before, or subtle like “What do you care about?”, the underlying goal is often to impose judgement.
. Instrumental questions like “what do you do for work?” are equally instrumental to “what do you care about?” when the person posing the question is motivated to resolve judgement.
This isn’t just about judging
“What do you do for work?” is probably the most obvious example. But there are other, less obvious methods people use to impose judgement on others and assess how that individual may be useful to them.
“What do you care about?”
are motivated to engage in an exchange where they can take away something with them at the end.
not out of enjoyment
, but out of what they may take from it at the end.
willingness to engage is not from the enjoyment of centers around what they can take away from the conversation--not their enjoyment of the exchange itself.
in an conversation these days seems to require a point. Interlocutors tend to engage in an exchange of information that must in some way be geared to a specific purpose. There’s little patience for conversations that don’t reveal immediately “actionable” insights.
or insights that conversations don’t reveal anything immediately “actionable,” be, in some way, “useful,” designed either to categorise each other or reveal an “actionable” insight about the world.
I’m finding my interlocutors tend to want an exchange of information that is, in some way, “useful.” Conversations have to fulfill a function, either to allow participants to engage in some form of judgement on of one antoher, or to optimise some idea about the world that allows them to come away from the conversation with something to act upon. As if that time would be wasted if there was nothing specific for them to take away from it. We’ve lost the joy that comes with a pointless exchange.
There’s a particular type of conversation I enjoy that I’m having an increasingly difficult time finding people to engage with, particularly grownups. These conversations don’t really have a point; they are just fun. Like playing catch with ideas; tossing a subject back and forth, and imposing absurd constraints upon it to alter the scenario.
feels like
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that either reveals something about me, lets them reveal something about themselves, or discloses some specific detail about the world that is, in some way, “useful.” Converstations have to fulfill a purpose, either for participants to engage in some for of judgement of one another, or to construct or build on some judgement about the world.
There’s a particular type of conversation I enjoy that I’m having an increasingly difficult time finding people to engage with, particularly grownups. These conversations don’t really have a point; they’re just fun. It feels like playing catch with ideas: tossing a subject back and forth and constructing absurd scenarios. I think of them as “what if” conversations.
I
a purpose - an exchange of information that is, in some way, “useful.” Interlocutors seek to reveal something about themselves, learn something about the world, or engage in a form of mutual judgement. Conversations must fulfill a function. Optimising a plan. Conveying fact. But I find myself increasingly missing the kind of conversation that doesn’t really have a point at all.
This is the “what if” conversation.
need to have a point. A purpose. I’m finding my interlocutors tend to want to engage in an exchange of information that either reveals something about me, lets them reveal something about themselves, or dislcoses some specifc information about the world that is, in some way, “useful” to know. Conversations have to fulfil a purpose, either to allow participants to engage in some form of judgement of one another, or to construct or build on some judgement about the world. But it wasn’t always this way.
There’s a particular type of conversation I enjoy that I’m having an increasingly difficult time finding people to engage with, particularly grownups. These conversations don’t really have a point, they are just fun. It feels like playing catch with ideas. Tossing a subject back and forth and constructing absurd scenarios. These are the “what if conversations.”
I was speaking to a few friends about soemthing funny a host might do during a dinner. Walk out of the dinner party, take a shower, and come back with a towel wrapped around their wet hair as if nothing had happened. No. Even more absurd. At a beach party, step into the ocean, fully clothed, and return to the dance floor without acknowledging that you are soaking wet. We were in absolute fits of laughter.
A seriuos person might say something like “yes, but you wouldn’t _actually_ do that”. That’s not the point. No one needs to act on the ideas of the conversation. The point isn’t to come away with something new, or different, or an idea for a business or an idea for work or for life. We’re not optimising for anything. We’re just talking.
Another thing I’m finding frustrating is that people aren’t capable of talking about ideas anymore. Not realistic ideas, but ideas just for the sake of it. These may, at some point, become actual idaes you can act on. But I don’t think that’s how good ideas begin.
Imagine you want to build a bridge. You can think about all the constraints first, and then plan out the architecture of the bridge. Or, you can take away all the constraints, design the bridge, and then add them back in. You’d come up with a much more interesting and probably useful design if you didn't begin by considering the constraints that gravity imposes on your design. I find this a useful approach to ideas in general. Sure, you can’t do much about gravity. But you can probably do something about most buerocratic barriers that are in place. First you come up with the design of the thing you want, with its purpose front and centre, then, as you explore the constraints and add them abck in one by one, you ask why they exist in the first place. Most constraints can be negotiated, or you can find ways to manage them in other ways. Constraints exist for a purpose, but there are plenty of other, probably bettter ways to serve that purpose in the first place.
I was having a conversation with my best firend the other day where we came up with an entire new profession: swimmers. We were trying to figure out what I was good at. Something I am good at is swimming, specificlaly, snorkeling. Going underwater and swimming really deep and comin gback up to the surface. I’m not even fast, so we needed to come up with something that didin’t require you to be the “best at swimming” to be lucrative. How could we have physical professions, like swimming, without them being comeptitive, like for the olympics? This is a pretty pointless activity, but I find it quite fun. We came up with an entire profession, and a history for it too. People back in the old days used to have “swimmers” aboard boats. Swimmers served the purpose of entertaining guests. Swimming was seen as a lower class activitiy because hwy would anyone who was wealthy enough not to get wet choose to get wet. This as somewhat also inspired by the french railways. The railways in the south of france take up the most valuable coastal real estate because people didn’t used to swim on the coast. It just wasn’t something that was done. This conversation lasted all dinner we constructed an entire world and history of a profession that does not exist. There was no point to it. But we had a wonderful time.
People are too judgemental. When you propose an absurd idae, they\re too quick to judge you for it. Every conversation is amo for judgement. But it doesn’t need to be that way. i always hated the phrase “drunk words are sober thoughts”. I don’t think they are. Sometimes you just want to poke at boundreis to expand them. Peoplea re no longer capable of handling this nuance, and it makes for far worse conversations. Far less fun. Far more judgemental.