We live in a world shaped by conversations, many of which we participate in without fully recognizing their influence upon our understanding, our concerns, or the possibilities we see for ourselves and others.
Some of these conversations are familiar. We have learned their language, developed opinions, and acquired enough experience to participate with confidence. We know something of their history, recognize the important questions, and have a sense of who is speaking and what is at stake.
Others remain largely outside our attention.
Consider the conversations taking place today about the future of work, changes in our political and social institutions, artificial intelligence or the increasingly unsettled relationships among nations. Each is already shaping the circumstances in which we live. Yet few of us can claim more than a passing familiarity with all of them.
This is often how explorations begin ... with the recognition that there is something beyond our present understanding worth examining.
We may recognize their importance without knowing quite what to think about them. We encounter unfamiliar language, competing interpretations, and questions for which we have no ready answers. Even deciding whom to listen to can be difficult.
And so, we often remain on the sidelines.
There is something about our ordinary understanding of conversation that contributes to this reluctance. We tend to approach unfamiliar subjects as though participation requires a certain level of knowledge. Before entering, we should become informed, develop an opinion, or at least understand enough to avoid appearing ignorant.
This expectation is understandable. None of us enjoys discovering, particularly in the company of others, how little we know about something. But it can also leave us waiting for a competence we may never acquire without entering the conversation itself.
The Possibility of Beginning
What if we approached unfamiliar conversations differently?
Rather than expecting ourselves to arrive with an informed position, we might begin by acknowledging that something has caught our attention. Perhaps we have encountered an unfamiliar idea, heard someone express a concern we had not previously considered, or noticed a development that seems likely to affect our lives.
We may not yet understand its significance. We may not even know what questions to ask.
Still, something has invited our attention.
This is often how explorations begin. Not with a clear objective or a well-formed question, but with the recognition that there is something beyond our present understanding worth examining.
I think we underestimate the significance of becoming a beginner.
Most of us spend considerable portions of our lives developing competence. We become familiar with particular fields, establish ways of understanding our circumstances, and learn to rely upon judgments that have served us well. Over time, these familiar interpretations provide the footing from which we move through the world.
They are indispensable. But they can also make it difficult to venture into territory where our experience offers little guidance. To become a beginner again is to accept that we may have something to discover before we have anything useful to say.
This need not diminish what we already know. It simply recognizes that our understanding is always partial, shaped by the histories and conversations in which we have participated.
There are other conversations underway.
Entering the Conversation
An unfamiliar conversation rarely presents itself as a clearly marked doorway. We may encounter it through an article, a book, a passing remark, or an exchange with someone whose experience differs from our own.
What first attracted our attention may no longer be the question that matters most. This is one of the possibilities that makes exploration worthwhile.
At first, much of what we hear may be difficult to follow. People use distinctions we do not recognize. They refer to events and histories unfamiliar to us. They disagree about matters whose significance we have not yet learned to appreciate.
Our first inclination may be to determine which explanation is correct.
Yet something else is possible.
We can begin by listening for what concerns the people participating in the conversation. What questions are they attempting to address? What experiences have brought them to their present understanding? Why does this matter to them? What possibilities do they see that we have not yet considered?
Such listening does not require us to abandon our judgment or accept the interpretations of others. We remain free to question, disagree, and eventually take a position of our own.
But our disagreements may become more informed, and our questions more substantial, as we become familiar with the territory. A conversation that initially seemed inaccessible may gradually become one in which we recognize something of our own concerns.
And occasionally, we may discover that the concern itself has changed.
What first attracted our attention may no longer be the question that matters most. An unfamiliar perspective may bring something into view that we had not previously recognized. We may find ourselves reconsidering an assumption that had never seemed questionable.
This is one of the possibilities that makes exploration worthwhile.
We cannot know in advance what we will encounter or whether it will change our understanding. Some explorations will lead nowhere. Others may introduce us to concerns that become important parts of our lives.
We will not know without venturing beyond what is already familiar.
An Invitation
Perhaps there is a conversation you have been following from a distance. Something that interests you, troubles you, or simply leaves you wondering. You recognize that it matters, although you have not yet found a way to participate. You may have assumed that you need to know more before entering.
Consider beginning where you are.
Find a voice worth listening to. Follow a question that interests you. Allow yourself to encounter interpretations different from your own. Notice what becomes more intelligible and what remains puzzling.
There is no requirement that every exploration produce a conclusion, much less a commitment to action. Sometimes an encounter simply enlarges our understanding of the world and the people with whom we share it.
And perhaps that is sufficient reason to begin. The conversations that matter are not reserved for those who already know what to say. We can enter them as learners, bringing our histories, our questions, and our concerns, while remaining open to discovering something we had not known to look for.
A Companion Reading:
Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet, Letter Four (July 16, 1903). Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) was an Austrian poet and writer, widely regarded as one of the important literary voices of the early twentieth century. His work explored questions of human existence, solitude, love, and the inner life.
Among his best-known writings is Letters to a Young Poet, a collection of ten letters written to a young man seeking advice about his poetry and his life. In Letter Four, Rilke encourages his young correspondent to be patient with questions that cannot yet be answered and to allow understanding to develop through living.
In this essay, “An Invitation into Conversations That Matter,” I've suggested that we need not arrive with answers, or even well-formed questions, before entering unfamiliar conversations.
I'm offering this reading because it speaks to something that often keeps us from beginning: the expectation that we should already know more than we do.
Perhaps we can begin with the questions we have.
