When meeting someone — possibly for the first time — are you more likely to make small talk, or leap right in to a serious conversation?
Share why if you wish.
Category: Conversation
Who Do You Want To Reestablish Contact With?
Of all the people you have known over your lifetime, are there people you have lost touch with that you would like to contact once again?
As social animals, the relationships we have with others are tremendously important. Part of what makes life enjoyable is the pleasure we get from the presence of other people. The company of a good friend is irreplaceable.
And yet, as the years go by, we might lose touch with one or more of these people. There are many reasons why this might happen: someone moves away. Busy lives and/or full schedules. A falling out over religion, or politics, or some other personal matter. You can probably think of others.
Listen to a podcast where Michael and Lee discuss a related question: ‘Are we too busy?’ We also discuss a bonus question: ‘What are our responsibilities to others?’
Technology is a two-edged sword when it comes to maintaining relationships.
In some ways, it is easier than ever to stay in touch. People carry phones with them everywhere. Video conferencing is ubiquitous. Sending a text message or an email is fast and easy, and messages can travel around the world in a matter of moments.
However, social media — despite the name — inhibits social interaction. If you can read a post, scroll though someone’s feed, or watch a recording, why would you need additional contact? In fact, calls are frowned upon in favor of texts, yet a text message is much less interactive than a call.
Is there someone — or multiple someones — from your life that you wish you were more frequently in touch with? Whose company you miss, but for whatever reason you are no longer in regular contact?
If a good friend, or mentor, or confidant, has died, of course, they are beyond connection. Short of that, can you pinpoint exactly why you lost touch with someone you like? And what, if anything, might you do to change that?
Related questions: Who do you miss? What do you get out of social media? What are our responsibilities to others? Are we too busy?
What Boneheaded Thing Have You Said Or Done?
Each of us has said something and immediately realized it was a boneheaded thing to say, but it was too late to take it back! Do you have any examples?
Share why if you wish.
What Would You Say To People In The Future?
If you had a chance to convey a message to future generations, what would you say? What would you hope to communicate?
Speaking to the past is easy. For instance, here at Intellectual Roundtable, we previously asked the question: What advice would you give your past self?
Such a question is relatively common in our society, and it is easy to see why. Even though to your past self, the future is a mystery, your present self knows what happens. You have the advantage of knowing how it all turns out.
Listen to a podcast where Michael and Lee discuss a related question: ‘What are you waiting for?’ We also discuss a bonus question: ‘Are science and religion compatible?’
However, to your present self, the future is unknown, perhaps even unknowable. So what do you say to the unknown?
You might even have some idea of what to tell yourself a decade on (or more). But what about someone a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand years from now? What information would you try to convey? How is it different from sending a message in the present moment, to the other side of the world?
Of course, we have a version of talking through time already. After all, isn’t that what writers do? What is, say, the novel Frankenstein, if it is not Mary Shelley taking to us from the 1800s? Was Homer speaking to people more than a thousand years later when he wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey?
So the technology exists to send a message forward in time. How would you use it? What would you say to people in the future?
Related questions: Past, present, or future? How do you plan for the future? What is time? What do we owe the future? Will the future be better than the present?
Debate Or Conversation?
Which do you like more: debating an topic, or having a conversation? Which do you think is more effective at changing minds?
Share why if you wish.
Debate Or Conversation?