Why Our Society Abounds in Bad Conversation

And Why You Should Learn About Conversational Threading

Author

Chris Miller
June 19, 2023

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Read Time: 3 minutes

Hello! & welcome to another day of opportunity where people make videos with clickbait titles that are sort of deceptive but also kind of true šŸ¤”

Letā€™s get straight to it. Hereā€™s whatā€™s on the menu today:

āœ‹šŸ¼ Examining the fleeting nature of conversation

šŸ“½ļø Whatā€™s conversational threading and why it matters

šŸ’” One thought that will reduce social pressure

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āœ‹šŸ¼ Examining the fleeting nature of conversation

One of my favorite reads was finally published digitally in The New Yorker. Itā€™s written by Hua Hsu and it beautifully examines the fleeting nature of conversation.

We often donā€™t realize how many variables go into creating a conversation that transforms us. It could happen at work, school, with your family, or with a stranger in passing.

[Conversation] in its ideal form, involves no audience or judge, just partners; no fixed agenda or goals, just process. As the philosopher Michael Oakeshott observed, in conversation ā€œthere is no ā€˜truthā€™ to be discovered, no proposition to be proved, no conclusion sought.ā€ What matters, he continued, is the ā€œflow of speculation.ā€ Conversation is casual; it isnā€™t a chat (too noncommittal), a debate (too contentious), or a colloquy (too academic).

Hua Hsu, source

šŸ“½ļø Whatā€™s conversational threading and why it matters

Conversational threading is a fun concept that I learned about in 2023.

Itā€™s funny when youā€™re already doing something but you donā€™t know what to call it, and then you learn thereā€™s a word for it so you educate yourself on that thing and then get even better at it.

The premise of conversation threading is to give several options for conversation to go.

I linked a clip below that explains an example. It is only 80 seconds and itā€™s a good thing to be thinking about if:

  • you have to have a lot of conversations for your work

  • your conversations seem to run out of gas

šŸ’” One thought that will reduce social pressure

Social interaction is predictably unpredictable.

This is why you feel like $1,000 after nailing a speech or landing a funny joke. You couldnā€™t control the audienceā€™s reaction, yet they still loved it.

Recognizing the ambiguity of conversation will allow you to lean into it and remove pressure from yourself to always have perfect social interactions.

If a joke doesnā€™t land, thatā€™s OK. If a speech goes awry, youā€™ll recalibrate next time.

We can improve at what we can control, and we can be surprised by rest.

šŸ‘Øā€šŸ’» I Got You Covered!

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