The Lost Art of Conversation

How is it that practically every time I talk to someone, I feel like killing myself?

I used to play this perverse little game whenever I met with certain friends or acquaintances. I say "perverse" because it was cynical and ultimately served little purpose but to confirm my observations about people.

There was only one rule to this game: I didn't offer up a single, personal thing about myself during a conversation unless I was asked, and "How’s it hangin'?" doesn't count.

I had one "friend," a physician, whom I’d had numerous dinners with over the course of 15 years, but in that long expanse of friendship time he never asked me a single, personal question. All he’d do was pontificate at me for hours about a variety of trivial things.

He died a few years back, so he'll be remembered by me for pitching an emotional no-hitter, but unfortunately, there's no Hall-of-Fame for that kind of self-absorption.

Another friend, this one living, introduced me to another friend of his who was also a writer -- only the guy didn’t know I was a writer too. Sure enough, I started my game. I talked to the guy for over two hours, asking him about his work. He was happy to oblige, but not once did he ask what I did for a living.

We parted ways without him knowing a single thing about me, except for my first name. I never contacted the son of a bitch again after the dinner was over.

And those are just a couple of the most extreme examples. I still endure varying degrees of this stuff daily, as you probably do, too. Try playing my game, if you’ve got it in you. With apologies to Dickens, you need to have big balls, ponderous balls that are fuller and heavier than they were seven Christmas-eves ago.

Anyhow, what this game led me to conclude is that true, meaningful conversation is terribly rare, almost non-existent, even among supposedly close friends and family members.

Sure, I'll occasionally engage in banter and exchange quips and talk about politics and maybe talk about "what's going on," but I usually leave a conversation feeling like the time I was a kid and waited for two years for my parents to take me to Disneyland to ride Splash Mountain and then, on the big day, found out it was closed for “disinfection” because some kid had launched a turd down the chute.

In other words, I leave those conversations feeling frustrated, unfulfilled, and slightly disgusted.

Anyhow, this has been a life-long struggle, but out of my frustrations has come the observation that there are 3 basic levels of complexity -- categories if you will -- to human conversation.

Level 1 Conversations – "Strawberry or vanilla…they're both so good!"

Level 1 is where 99% of humans spend their conversational life. Level 1 conversation involves the most superficial of superficial topics, things like what you did today, what foods you like, the freakin' weather, the advantages of all-weather tires, and maybe gossip about how the girl behind the meat counter at the Piggly Wiggly used to do a guy whose cousin was the pool boy for one the guys in BTS.

Level 1 conversation was displayed during the last couple of episodes of "Better Call Saul" where Kim and her work colleagues deliberate at length about whether to celebrate a co-worker's birthday with strawberry ice cream or vanilla ice cream, because "they're both so good!" This type of conversation is also the lifeblood of social media, God help us.

Listening to it or reading it can make anyone whose IQ has a fighting chance of hitting 3 digits want to kill himself in some fantastic way with colorful stage lights and fog, just to offset the dreariness.

Level 2 Conversations – Where Most of Us Live

Level 2 conversation is where people who think they're adept at conversation spend a lot of their time. Admittedly, it takes at least a smidgeon of consciousness.

It usually involves political discussions, current events, sports, or mind-numbing esoterica. There's nothing wrong with those kinds of discussions; they can even be somewhat satisfying at times, but unfortunately, the things usually "discussed" are often based on beliefs rather than observations and belief-based systems, I've learned, are dead on arrival.

You can't argue with beliefs. Beliefs are closed systems. Each participant makes an assertion, often with a breathtaking degree of certainty, and yet, as a famous existentialist once observed, none of their certainties are worth one strand of woman's hair.

You probably encounter examples of this every day -- things like my God’s better than yours, dogs are better than cats, Star Trek over Star Wars, should the person in the middle seat get both armrests, or how long does it take to disinfect a water slide after some kid launches a dookie?

You know, stuff like that.

But it doesn't matter, anyway, because the other person usually doesn’t even hear these assertions; they're too busy waiting for that moving pie hole in front of them to close so they can utter their equally opinionated assertion. Each person ends up using the other as a sounding board.

No questions are ever asked, nothing is really learned, and each participant retires to their workplace or home, smug in their belief that they're personally highly engaging, smart, and worldly.

I understand, though. People are generally so thirsty for someone to listen to them that they get exceedingly selfish when the opportunity presents itself. Rather than sharing the herring at the Smorgasbord, they pile all of it on their own plate, smile at the sun, and declare that life is good.

And, the Top of the Heap, Level 3 Conversations

Level 3 conversation is so very rare that few people have experienced it. It requires the participation of at least two people who have innocent curiosity that's backed up with accurate observations and clear thought. Just to be clear, innocent questions are those asked without ulterior motives, without a desire to be manipulative or deceptive; the only motivation is to learn and maybe acquire some wisdom.

Above all, Level 3 conversations explore meaningful topics.

I'll try to give you an example. Let's say I'm talking with someone and it starts out as a Level 2 conversation about something that might ordinarily be considered mundane: movies. After being asked which ones I like, I might offer that one of my favorites is The Shawshank Redemption. In return, the other person, in the unlikely event they gave a damn and wanted to really learn something about me, might ask me what I liked about it.

If I were a regular, self-guarded, 2-dimensional schmuck who answers without thinking, I might say something about the plot, the acting, or maybe even the cinematography, which ultimately reveals nothing about myself.

However, let's say this was the aforementioned level 3 conversation and I really took the question seriously.

I might have said that I admire the main character, Andy Dufresne, who despite having no freedom, decides that life matters. This trait caused me to sit up straight because I'm almost the opposite – I have freedom, but I've half decided that life doesn't matter. I'm more like Red, who's been sidetracked by fear and cynicism, so in a way, I live in a prison of my own making.

I find myself hugely impressed at how Andy isn't afraid of anything, how, despite his dire circumstances -- life in prison without parole -- he tried to make life better for his fellow prisoners. He developed a real friendship with Red – with lots of level 3 conversations -- and had the patience, courage, and foresight to burrow through a prison wall for 20 years with a small rock hammer as his only tool.

And it resonated with me how Andy, in concert with one of the closing lines of the movie, decided to "get busy living or get busy dying," a philosophy that Red also ended up adopting.

So, in seeing that movie, I'm reminded of my shortcomings and what I need to do.

In my hypothetical conversation, the person I was talking to found out something about me (if they were actually listening) and maybe something about themselves. We transcended bullshit. What's more, I feel good because somebody asked me a question and listened to the answer without interjecting how the movie they really liked was Dumb and Dumber because "it was funny as shit."

The “Manliest Art”

If you want to personally try it, you might ask someone what they're passionate about, and what it is about that hobby, sport, area of study, etc., that gets them excited.

Hell, if you have any emotional balls, ask a friend what it's like to have you as a friend. Ask your wife or girlfriend or significant other what it's like being in a relationship with you.

Those kinds of conversations require emotional courage, but ultimately, they're the only ones truly worth having. Real conversation is an art, maybe even the manliest art, at least that's what Thomas Jefferson, the French philosopher Montaigne, and Roman statesman Cicero all thought.

The downside of going down this path, in trying to nurture a level 3 conversation, is that you might learn something about yourself that you don't like; learn something that doesn't fit your self-image. The upside is that you might take that inconvenient thing you learned about yourself and use it to become a better person. You might also find that you have a friend that's worth holding onto.

But if your sole purpose for having conversations is to satisfy your ego, convince yourself that you're smart, or to just have fun and pass time, you could continue to dog paddle in a perpetual pool of self-absorption and in doing so, miss out on a lot.

Level 3 conversations, however, teach you about yourself, other people, about life, and in doing so, make your existence a whole lot more satisfying.

It's a fuckin’ shame they're so rare.

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