CuppaGemma

Hans Rosling gives a wonderful TED talk.

“Does your mindset correspond to my dataset? If not, then one or the other needs upgrading.”

We can recast assumptions and preconceptions into facts and statistics, and take those as the defining context. It changes the flow of a discussion from a confrontation between opponents to two groups working toward a common goal. That common goal may change because the problem gets redefined.

Emotion becomes disempowered, even deflated.

There is no need for the telenovela patina which can come with heated discussions that devolve into histrionics and fingerpointing. It can also change the landscape of the discussion because the focus is on a different part of the graph.

What you can do though, is look at information as a series of points that become involved in an intricate dance to answer a question. They then return to the sidelines afterward, and may never reassemble in the same way again. The beauty of relational navigation is being able to adapt, and to see new relationships.

It’s the ability to assemble and reassemble, to adapt and recreate sets of information in a dynamic way that is interesting.

I like to think of it as information becoming liquid instead of locked in siloed sets with strict rules. In a way it is like working with language- to make the familiar seem different, or to say something different that is at once wholly familiar….

How does one do that in a relationship with a person?

Perhaps it is the way that people complement one another in how they think, what they do and what it is they want to do. Where they can suspend their assumptions and make different kinds of information fit together in different ways….

Relentless flirting can help too.

But that only gets you so far before it becomes like a house band that plays the same set the same way so you no longer hear through the monotony.

It’s in the sixth hour of a call, well into the night, when you both are as eager as in the first half hour that you find it’s the ability to navigate one another that is the most intriguing of all.

To learn the roadmap of someone else in the same instant as they look with wonder at yourself. Perhaps that is the other key aspect, to accept rather than to tinker with each other.

As is. Just right.

Chemistry that catches you by accident somewhere on I-95.

There is the moment of the inhale. Slowly and carefully, containing anger, maintaining poise. There is the brief, but studied exhale. Composure, before disclosure. Then a pause. Dramatic timing, build that tension. A purse of lips, a slight of shake of head.  Delivered in the most understated manner. Tone must be precise and deadpanned.

“And?” says the mother.

There is the sigh, inserted as a filler, to allow for quick scanning recalls of past conversations and recent events. Was there and odd blip that got missed on radar’s first studied pass? There is the long and somewhat annoyed inhale. Like zippering a make up bag; having been applied, bafflement and annoyance will be hidden from view.

Bumbling performance is key.

“What?” says the daughter.

Silence. The next to speak is likely to smear the polish.

These are debates of the eyes.

Language is for arguing with men, not about them.