“Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.”
- Proverbs 16:24
Verbal language and the use of words is a quality (at least as far as we know) unique to human beings. That human, similarly to God, could use the Word or the Sound, also meant that human being is not a mere passive recipient of cosmic forces, but also an active agent. Words and speech are on even a mundane level, creative agents — when we utter and say something, our physical reality immediately responds to what we say. People recognise us, hear us, and we engage in hundreds of such transactions just in a single day. Similarly, with words we express our feelings or commonly say our oaths — the fact that wedding oaths, military oaths or any other oath must be spoken loudly and while standing, indicates that we still assume that saying something out loud is what makes the intent real. “I proclaim you husband and wife.”, says the priest as the bond is made official before the world, together with all the promises made and oaths taken.
Conversation as such, used to be one of the pleasures — there is a liquid quality to it, and for those who know how to do it, it begins to move the “juices within.” Sometimes it has elements of play — to be subtle, to suggest, to say by not saying, to say while “speaking in a shadow language” and so establish a unique intimacy when someone understands the shadow language you speak in.
Yet in our times, it seems that such pleasure, or even skill have been a little lost. The financial and technological attitudes, focusing on efficiency have spread into our attitudes towards conversations and speech. We seek to speak efficiently and effectively, to a certain end, rather for the enjoyment of it. Many also seem to feel awkward and uncomfortable having to hold a conversation. Hence we may now find that human beings may speak similar to machines and robots. Or fearing to upset others, given the general emotional fragility of people around us, we resort to the so called “PR/HR/Therapy/etc” language. Such language may often feel cold, contrived, disconnected and too impersonal to be enjoyable and bond-creating.
For many centuries, women have had clubs and salons in which people gathered for no other reason than to connect, interact, play games, and perhaps establish new networks and find opportunities for one’s creative projects and ideas. The skill of conversation — how to guide it, lead it, spark it, move it, was important for such.
In today’s article, this is what we shall aim to learn or perhaps revive if we already know it — how to cultivate the art of conversation and be a good conversationalist. There will be another article that focuses on art of speech as such (as in how to speak eloquently, beautifully and so on), but today we focus primarly on the interactive use of speech. We can use these for any kind of relationship — romantic, friendly, familial, professional or just about any other.
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