Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:52
Let’s step into the Knowledge Cafe ( and maybe shape the future while we’re here)
And really look at the power of people sitting around a table and parsing out issues to the extent that they're able to say, wow, I'm getting something I didn't get before this conversation happened. And I know that we do this so much here on Swell, but I want to drop into what conversation is really at its core and why it's so important for all of us to honor the gift that we have as people who use our voices and speak to each other
David Gurteen
@DavidGurteen · 4:11
So coming back to that connection between physics and conversation, one of my favorite quotations, I'm not too sure who this is from basically says that a physicist is an atoms way of knowing about itself. Think about that for a moment. We're all made of atoms. Human body is made of atoms, or pains are made of atoms. But somehow we get to study and understand atoms. It's really rather strange, isn't it? But how do physicists get to know about atoms?
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:39
David, that's such a beautiful sort of moment between you and your father. I'm just I'm staying with that for a second. And then the whole idea of us looking at ourselves, to make sense of ourselves I mean, everything is one big loop. And when you settle into that, when you find peace in that, from that place comes just this artistic way of seeing life because it seems like everything's sort of this big canvas of possibility
David Gurteen
@DavidGurteen · 3:23
She wrote a book some years ago called Time to Think. And she says something along these lines, that listening is not a passive act, it's a creative act
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:57
Just the being in the listening is such a gift to give that I think about social anxiety in both the professional and social circles, people wanting to be prepared for what they're going to say next. I think asynchronous audio liberates us from that for sure. I want to ask about the structure of the Knowledge Cafe
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
David Gurteen
@DavidGurteen · 3:28
Okay, let's see if I can pick up on the few things you said there, Deborah. In some ways, not so much seeing conversation as a creative act, although I think that's the best term for it is to see it as an enabling act. You're enabling the other person to be more creative, I guess, first of all by showing them attention so they know that they're being listened to and that what they're doing is worthwhile
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:36
Hey, David, you know, it's so interesting. I know you're across the pond from me, and when you talk, I imagine you allowing for that freedom because you're so committed to the art. I think it's an art of conversation. It's so meta for me to talk about this with you, which is one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation, because I think there's something really relaxing about letting go of the agenda, to your point
David Gurteen
@DavidGurteen · 3:57
Hi, Deborah. There's part of me, when I think about conversations, that says for conversation to be a real conversation, that it has to have no purpose, no plan, no planned outcome, that it is just a conversation that goes where the conversation wants to go. And one of the problems I have with this medium I can't remember if I said this in the last message or not, if I can figure out here how to post a link
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:15
And I think the science behind, of course, how we mirror each other and how we how we pick up other voices, the voice that we're hearing, and we kind of meld vocabulary sometimes. But when I think about the mental health aspect of actually using your voice, being learn, being connected with, there's nothing like it
David Gurteen
@DavidGurteen · 2:24
Interesting what you said about Chat GBT, my wife, the bank she works for, is closing down in a few months time, so she needs to find another job. And she's had quite a few interviews so far, but she hasn't has an offer yet and so she gets a little bit depressed at times. And so she she chats with chat UPT. It's a little bit like a psychiatrist, psychologist, and there are no difference between those two
Creative Reader
@MoonPoet · 1:55
Hello, this is Stephen, and I enjoy following the topic here. I'm new to the community, and I'm here for the poetry. I'm used to the blank page, but this app has me thinking now of maybe a microphone in an empty room is something akin to a blank page. I'm very interested in language and the future of communication
David Gurteen
@DavidGurteen · 3:38
Hello, Steven. Thanks for joining the conversation. There were two things that went through my mind as you were talking. Both of them were kind of quotes. One of them was something along the lines that knowledge is where a book is where knowledge goes to die. And you could argue that it wasn't. Although, for me, once you take knowledge and you put it into writing, it's no longer knowledge, it's information