Conversations Worth Having

“Hey Bob, how’s it going?”

“Tim, how goes? It’s okay, just back from Memphis.”

“Good ribs, right?”

“You know it.”

“Watching the game tonight?”

“If my boss lets us leave when he’s supposed to, yeah...”

Make your conversation fit the person and the place.

Blah blah blah.

Do I need to be here for this?

Not really, and you don’t either. And neither were Bob and Tim. That conversation could be had on autopilot, and probably was. You know its content from the beginning, and you know the actual information transfer was minimal. I understand life is comprised of hundreds of these conversations; in fact, it is too often mostly these conversations, but why are you having them?

We waste so much of our time on the fluff. We forget to find the heart of the matter, whatever your matter may be.

The conversation above is AI slop, run by the unconscious portion of our brain. It is a conversation that, in my opinion, is broadly speaking not worth having. I am not saying that you need to treat strangers rudely or that you need to skip all forms of small talk, but there is no real reason to hang in that space unless you must. The human brain appears to work much like automated programs that get triggered by external stimuli. You don’t really think much about how you shower. You step into the shower and begin a program which tells you how to go about the task. You don’t really think much about the act of driving to work; you initiate a program you have run hundreds of times before and you drive to work. You don’t think about putting on pants; you know how to do it, it’s a small, small program running. You don’t think about how to tie your shoes.

None of these things are conscious actions by the conscious brain. They are not the conscious you; they are the preprogrammed you. Conversations can be the same. Think consciously about the people you have spoken with and the conversations you have had in the last week. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Were they the same conversations several times? Did some of them show up as repeats of greatest hits from the interactions with the same person that you have had previously? Why did you have them? Are you trying to convey an emotion? Change a mind? Transmit information? Reinforce something out loud you already think internally? Were they you having to think about what you were saying and trying to use a deliberate thought process to do something new?

It is rarely the last. The last is where you are. You can transmit information and emotion and change a mind deliberately, of course, but we often don’t. We are just moving through the world on autopilot.

Don’t get me wrong. You can change those subroutines with new habits and intentional action. They are not permanent, but this is not where I want to talk about building new habits. I want to encourage you to consider how to build better conversations that it has to be you and it has to be the partner to have. When you find yourself walking the same road when you’re talking, re-engage. Is this really what you want to say? Is it really in response to what was just said to you, or are you just waiting your turn to say what you were going to say anyway? Are you contemplating what the other person has to say, that they might know something you don’t, or are you armor that their words bounce off of, while you fire out anecdotes of your own? Those are not conversations; those are information volleys.

It’s hard to have conversations worth having. They take effort and focus. But if you don’t, why should anyone talk to you? Why should you talk to anyone? Go try to have a conversation with someone, and be there for it. They want you, not your AI slop equivalent.