How would you list the art and skills of good conversation?

@being 3. Wash, rinse, repeat.

@DunningKruger 3 in 1 for all purposes

@being @DunningKruger. I think you have summed up the most important points very neatly there!

@Royricky09
I love that too, esp when the flow goes both ways equally.
Is there an idea that's really caught your attention lately? If so, what is it? And what about it interests you most?

@hartfire exactly

@Royricky09 Several ideas have caught my interst lately...
- Citizen democracy, how it is taking offf as a grassroots movement, and how it has the potential to bring about a more effective form of social cooperation.
- the huge range of different responses to Climate Change, and how that reflects on differing human values and personalities, and how that might work for or against the life on the planet as a whole.
- how our bodies work like mini-universes and learning more about the mitochondria

@hartfire

@SW-User Love that stone house in the background - but wow, what a lot of work that topiary and lawn would be. Maybe that's how you soothe your brain - although, if you're 26-30 then that photo's not you.

@hartfire That’s my dealer’s house actually

@hunkalove How about meditating on a raisin?
What's the experience like for you when you savour it via every sense?

@hunkalove Maybe you might like this poem...


Harlem, by Langston Hughes


What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

@GeniUs Or maybe they're just too shy or embarassed to own up to their mistakes?

@hartfire There are some people who 'are never wrong', I've met them and the best that they come up with when you're nailing them to the cross is 'perhaps we both made mistakes'. But anecdotes about people's lives are fun to hear and make you more human. I hope you don't now admit you are a robot.

@GeniUs I could be a cyborg, and not know it. One could ask whether the biochemical processes that drive the cells, neurones and electron exchanges are automatic or conscious. If just the result of physics, then maybe the perception of agency is just an illusion. Which would then bring everything into question: personal responsibility, law, social contracts, future...

I remembered an incident from teen years. I was about 15 and wanted to enter my Arab gelding into a costume class at a local gymkana. Mum was averse to the idea because she thought being competitive was "unhealthy" and "not good for character development."
But she relented enough to say, "okay, if you design and make the costume for yourself and Shaz (the horse), I'll buy you the materials of your choice. And you'llhave to ride there and back. I won't pay for the hire of a horse float."
Shaz was a bright bay (sienna red head, neck & body with black mane, tail and legs), so I chose bright aqua for the woollen bridle, reins, breastplate, girth and saddle blanket, and for my caftan and headscarf, with black wool for the trims. I spun and plaited the tack, embroidered the saddle blanket, and cut out and sewed my costume. On the day, I dressed in the gear. Rules required standard riding boots and helmet, so the caftan must have looked weird over jodpurs and the scarf over the helmet - nothing like the Bedhouin warrior I hoped to appear to be. In some vague hope, I added dark make-up, and used mascara on my eyebrows and to paint on a beard & mustache.
The ride there was great fun, mostly through the Sydney bush of Kuringai Chase National Park and the catchment of the Manly Dam.
Finally the time came. There about twenty in the class. We were asked to walk, trot and canter in a circle around the judge, keeping our horses a horse length apart. The we were directed to line up and each of us was given a turn to do a solo figure of at at the trot and canter. My turn came and it started to rain. My mascara ran, making it hard to see. Black smears ran down onto the caftan. Shaz's girth broke. (My bad workmanship, not strong enough to handle the weight, speed and pull - untested.) I and the saddle fell off. Shaz stopped and just stood there. I left the saddle on the ground, jump-swung onto Shaz's back, and finished the figure of eight.
I came last.
Mum had made her point
and since then I've always avoided competition.

Would you like to share one of your stories with me