Look! Words!
We say things to each other. We listen with varying degrees of attention to what another is saying to us. What could be simpler? What sort of pedantic nitpicker would want to explore the conversation process a little more deeply. And why?
Here is one answer to the why question: We can not help but take many things — most things, actually — “for granted,” by which we mean giving no thought at all to something or someone continuing to serve our needs or desires in the ways to which we have become accustomed. When we arise out of bed in the morning for example, we “take for granted” that a floor will be there to stand on. We do not even need to look.
If we could not take many things for granted, we would be forced every morning to begin again the process of figuring out what our life is all about. How to approach it; what to pursue and what to avoid; strategies for every conceivable possibility.
Past experiences and our responses to them can be retained within our interior mental and spiritual machinery. Over time, many of those, along with the ways we compare, combine and categorize them, become matters we “take for granted.” How could it not be so?
But there is always a but. What happens when we cling too vehemently to one of these little soul robots — often unconsciously, like not thinking about a shoe as long as it fits comfortably, or seems to? Or what happens when we are confronted with an experience that seems to be overwhelming our habitual perceptions and responses?
At various points in our lives, we are challenged to, as we say, “think outside the box,” that is, my box, my “me box,” where I have been sitting all cozy all my life, surrounded by endless shelves overloaded with things I habitually “take for granted”? It is so easy to repeat the sentiment: “Think outside the box.” But you’ll notice that the phrase is almost always used as advice given to another. Our box is fine just the way it is. Leave it alone, please.
And so, we come to the issue of a conversation — like the one-sided one I am having with you right now. Hardly a conversation at all, since you have not been able to comment, question, or disagree, accept in your own mind.
I have been writing (“speaking”) out of my own “box.” Have I ever thought, before this moment, to “think outside of” that box? Have I just been mouthing a bunch of ideas that I “take for granted,” and, worse yet, assuming that you take them for granted once you read (hear) them, or should?
To return the original question (sort of), What sort of punctilious buzzkill would want to explore the conversation process a little more deeply? Answer: Me. And maybe you too.
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