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"What Do You Want To Talk About?"

  • Writer: Abbie VanMeter
    Abbie VanMeter
  • May 14
  • 2 min read



Getting a little meta here today... but, I am sitting at my desk, getting ready to write something about today's podcast, and- maybe for the first time- really paying attention to the prompt that LinkedIn offers when I go to create a post:


 


"What do you want to talk about?" 



Wow. It is so important that we reflect on "what we want to talk about" before we start actually talking because it can be easy to be swept up in doing what others are doing or saying what others are saying, rather than making mindful choices for ourselves about what we want to make in the world. After all, CMM would say that "what we talk about" directly creates the social worlds we live in. So, asking, "What do you want to talk about?" is like asking, "What do you want to create?"



So, what do I want to talk about?



Well, it's a perfect prompt (and an easy question) for me because after my latest conversation with Anokh Goodman and Rana Kökçinar, I am feeling really inspired to talk more about the ideas we explored together because of what I think we can create from them.



In this conversation, Anokh offers us language from Erich Fromm's "To Have Or To Be?"- inviting us to consider what changes when we move from "doing" or "having" to "being" in our interpersonal relationships. 



One thing that I realized as I listened back through and edited this episode is that this language perfectly describes something that I have been trying to say for a long time. In many previous episodes I have attempted to make the distinction between what I see being offered most, which is "communication SKILLS," and what I hope to offer through the podcast- a "communication PERSPECTIVE." 



Talking about "communication skills"- things like making eye contact, nodding when someone is speaking, having open body language- focuses on the "having" and "doing" part. These aren't bad things to DO, but they are just that... things for "doing."



In contrast, a "communication perspective"- looking 'at' communication instead of 'through' it, mindfully considering choices and turns, orienting toward what is made- is about "being." It is an embodied practice, an emergent way of communicating, interacting, and relating. It opens up a much richer world of possibilities. 



As Anokh and Rana invite us into their ongoing conversation around our drive to create "super-coherence" and the alternative opportunity to engage "incoherence," I can't help but think that the only way to meet this challenge is to tend to our ways of "being." 



Coherence is a necessary part of our meaning-making process- but what happens when we become so obsessed that we begin seeking a kind of "super-coherence"? What can happen instead when we bring Mystery back into the conversation, so much so that we actively seek out "incoherence"- not as something to be corrected, but as something to be savored, treasured? 



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