Jargogled Impressions.

“Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it.” – Ursula K. Le Guin.

I often wonder what makes for a deep conversation. And not surprisingly, I wonder about them when in the midst of agonizingly mechanical, superficial, plastic, and routine conversation. You know what these conversations are – they are the lazy man’s version of tete-a-tete that is undertaken when our minds are busy with other stuff. What stuff do you ask? You know, the stuff that makes for the pathos of an ordinary life. When we straddle our minds with the chores and the inebriant responsibilities that dog our day-to-day life, our conversations quickly turn into one with a similar terrarium. And that’s when I lose my patience.

It feels to me sometimes that through these shallow conversations we are essentially trying to skirt the deeper recesses of our consciousness. And it is primarily because we are ourselves so unfamiliar with it that our conversations become a reflection of it.

So, what constitutes the building blocks of a deep conversation? Like everything else in the fabric of reality, the perception of depth is a uniquely human construct. Like deep space, deep time, deep conversation is dependent on the subject and is as subjective as they come. Some construe deep conversations as something that helps you know the other person better, others are keen on diving deeper into the topic (philosophy, politics, technology, economics) versus anything anthropological. Some are teleological (do I get anything out of it) about their conversations, while others are hedonistic (is there any pleasure I can derive while talking to this person), and still others are nihilistic (can I irritate the heck out of this person).

So, defining a deep conversation is tantamount to blind men describing an elephant as they perceive it. I suppose all of these definitions hold and we find ourselves somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Regardless, I think there are a few dimensions to the depth that we can have in a conversation:

• Deep emotion
• Deep engagement
• Deep context
• Deep purpose
• Deep passion

Deep emotion: these are the conversations you have with those you love and are as near to you as family. The chatter is fraught with emotions of love or affection that bring out the depth of our feelings towards the other person. This is the kind that Shelley, Blake, Wordsworth, Keats or Lord Byron talks about in their poems. The emotions are across a spectrum from joy to tragic melancholy, but the conversation centers upon the deep emotions at play and makes it transparent. You get to know the person better, you appreciate their feelings, and share a sense of wonder at the complexity and depths that human emotions are capable of.

Deep engagement: this can take many forms and can appear in a wide variety of contexts. From romantic relationships to acquaintances, when you are engaged in a topic to the fullest extent you bring yourself into the midst, it becomes personal, and it becomes a mission. The engagement is driven not merely by your active interest in the topic, but also interest in knowing the person in front of you. The motivation behind this engagement can vary from personal attainment (career, relationship) to evangelical wonder (being human), but the conversations tend to hold you in its stead, keep it from wandering about, and are usually induced by a psychedelic accelerant.  

Deep context: these are the forms of communication that result when you are talking to a domain expert or a subject matter expert in business, art, or religion. The conversations start very broadly but quickly turn into a monologue from the expert that spills out the inner workings of a complex system or a topic the said person has spent a lot of time thinking or working on. These are the kinds of conversations that kickstart the germination of a new business idea or a tunneling into a rabbit hole.

Deep purpose: some conversations are driven more by their inherent meaning and ideology and help us understand the person much more than the topic at hand. These conversations unearth a deeper purpose or meaning that the person attaches to the topic at hand and enables us to really view the topic from a detached angle. The best forms of deeper conversations here tend to be when the host compartmentalizes his own thinking and ideology and instead bases the conversation on the guest’s passion and purpose. These are the kinds of conversations that podcasts we love are based on.

Deep passion: I differentiate between passion and purpose primarily because purpose purports monotheism while passion can be polytheism. When we meet passionate people and engage them in conversations, they tend to speak up and their passionate eruptions tend to bring a different side to their personality. It is like going to ComicCon and interacting with a Sandman nerd, going to a DefCon and interacting with a NotPetya nerd, going to Burning Man and conversing with a indie music lover. The passion erupts like an active volcano, and you are left scrambling to understand what is being said. It is like jumping on to crypto Twitter and facing the barrage of conversations from this passionate tribe of anarchist techno-libertarians.

Deep conversations are satisfying. They help us make better sense of ourselves and they are a potent tool for entertainment.  Being conscious about having deep conversations can kickstart a flywheel that opens doors to a whole new world.  A new way of living, deep in the realms of conversation.

Postscript: To me, books are the ultimate forms of deep conversation. While you may be quick to point out that with books its usually a one-way conversation, I would hasten to add that it’s not entirely so. We read through our own prism of perception and therefore our reading, when done ‘deliberately’ can be a powerful source of deep conversation. A type of conversation that is independent of whether or not the other person is a willing participant or not. Reading is, to put it crudely, the masturbation of deep conversation.