This post is a part two. I won’t add much preamble, because you can read that in the part one—suffice to say that this is about the million moments in a day—almost any day, really—that I could write about.
- Throughout the walk we talked about so many things: morning pages, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, meditation, artificial intelligence, design, writing, growing up, travel, relationships, family, internal family systems, This American life, Pico Iyer, the New Camaldoli Hermitage, solitude, storytelling, and more. I could write about any of those discussions. I could pull quotes out. There’s something about the act and art of conversation, about meeting someone on the same frequency, about energy-giving conversations.
- We’d both brought cameras, but I don’t think either of us took any photographs. We were wrapped up, I think, in the non-stop conversation. I’d brought my recorder and binaural microphones and didn’t record a single thing. The place was the setting for a great conversation, and I think I existed in that conversation more-so than the place for those couple hours. There’s something here about tools that can influence you even if you don’t use them. About preparing, just in case. About being absorbed by discussion and ideas.
- We walked by a few folks, and a few folks walked past us. Each time it happened, I thought about the snippet of conversation overheard in either direction, and thought about what we fill in ourselves when we overhear something. How did folks end up at the point in the conversation they’re at now? Where will they be ten minutes or two hours from now? What can I infer about them? There’s something about the countless conversations happening at any moment. About the strangers you almost meet, but not quite. About tiny moments that you might wonder about for minutes or for months.
Alright, that’s the first half of the day, so I’ll pause here again and come back tomorrow. I feel like I’m cheating a bit here, but it’s my daily blog, you know? Besides, lots to write about once I’m done.