I had a long TEAMS conversation today with a friend whom I have known for the best part of forty years. There was no agenda and no particular reason for the call. We simply started talking.
It reminded me how valuable spontaneous conversation can be.
Many years ago, before instant communication became part of everyday life, if you wanted to communicate with somebody at a distance you wrote a letter. You chose the paper, sat down, gathered your thoughts, wrote them out, put the letter in an envelope and posted it. Your correspondent might not receive it until several days later, and another few days might pass before you received a reply.
Then came the telephone, followed much later by email, text messages and social media. Now I can have a thought and communicate it to somebody on the other side of the world within seconds.
Has this necessarily been an improvement?
Technologically, unquestionably. Psychologically, I am not so sure.
The interval between stimulus and response has almost disappeared. We can read something that annoys us and immediately fire off a reply. We don’t necessarily have time to reflect upon whether what we are saying is accurate, fair or even what we really think.
A proper conversation is different.
It might begin with the simplest of questions: How are you?
But neither person knows where it will end.
Conversation as exploration
The human brain contains an extraordinary accumulation of memories, experiences, impressions and ideas. Most of them cannot possibly be present in our conscious awareness simultaneously.
Perhaps one of the functions of conversation is to draw some of this material to the surface.
Someone says something that reminds you of something else. You respond. That triggers another thought in them. They tell you something you hadn’t considered. Suddenly the conversation has acquired a life of its own.
At its best, neither person is merely waiting for the other to stop talking. Both are listening, responding and discovering.
That was certainly true of today’s conversation.
I mentioned how affected I have been by the continual stream of bad news, political argument and claims and counterclaims that surround us. My friend reminded me of something we have discussed many times before: his conviction that we are essentially spiritual beings temporarily inhabiting physical bodies.
Whether or not one accepts that proposition, it certainly changes one’s perspective.
If our present physical existence isn’t the whole story, perhaps the latest political crisis, economic difficulty or alarming headline doesn’t deserve quite as much of our emotional energy as we give it.
How much fear do we consume?
We talked about our increasing distrust of much of the news.
I find myself becoming exhausted by it. Politicians accuse other politicians of lying. Commentators accuse politicians of covering things up. One side presents its version of events, another presents an entirely different version, and the ordinary person is somehow expected to establish the truth.
Sometimes I finish reading the news feeling worse informed than when I started.
I have also become increasingly conscious of the amount of fear contained in the information we consume. Crime, war, disease, economic collapse, immigration, environmental catastrophe—the menu of things about which we are invited to worry is almost endless.
My friend and I share concerns about the extent to which governments and large institutions may increasingly seek to regulate people’s lives. We talked about money, digital transactions, food, transport and information. Some people see developments in these areas primarily as matters of efficiency or security; others, ourselves included, worry about the potential loss of individual freedom.
Whatever the truth of particular claims, I think the psychological question is important:
How much fear should I allow into my mind every day?
There comes a point where being informed ceases to be useful and simply becomes damaging.
Life after death
Our conversation then moved in a completely different direction.
Both of us have a longstanding interest in accounts of near-death experiences—people who have come close to death during an accident, illness or operation and subsequently reported extraordinary experiences.
I find these testimonies endlessly fascinating.
They don’t constitute straightforward scientific proof of an afterlife, and interpretations differ considerably. But taken as human testimony, I find them worthy of serious attention.
Each account seems to add another piece to an enormous jigsaw puzzle.
One of these days I intend to assemble a selection of the most interesting videos I have encountered on YouTube and Rumble. I don’t want to tell people what they must believe. I would rather put the material before them and allow them to reach their own conclusions.
Perhaps my attraction to these accounts also reflects something more personal. If consciousness really does extend beyond the physical body, then the inevitable deterioration of that body becomes somewhat less frightening.
Finding trustworthy information
My friend and I also discussed where we obtain information.
We both sometimes follow UKColumn because we value hearing perspectives that are not necessarily represented by the major broadcasters. But I think the important principle applies equally to alternative and mainstream sources: none should be granted automatic authority simply because we happen to agree with them.
Alternative media can be wrong too.
The responsibility ultimately comes back to us. Compare sources. Look for evidence. Distinguish fact from interpretation. Be prepared to change your mind.
Perhaps most importantly, don’t continually consume information that leaves you angry, frightened and powerless.
Money and enjoying the present
We also talked about money.
There is a temptation, particularly as one gets older, continually to save for some undefined future. Obviously we need sufficient reserves and shouldn’t behave recklessly. But there is another side to the equation.
Money is supposed to serve life.
There isn’t much point accumulating it indefinitely while denying ourselves experiences we could enjoy now—a holiday, a pleasant meal, a journey, seeing friends or simply doing something different.
Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed to any of us.
The trick, presumably, is neither extravagance nor miserliness but knowing when money has more value spent on living than sitting as a number on a statement.
A friend’s book
A mutual friend is writing a book about the relationship between consciousness and the body. My friend described some of what he was reading as “beautiful”, which struck me as an interesting choice of word.
There are ideas that appeal not merely intellectually but at a deeper level. That doesn’t necessarily make them true, of course, but perhaps it tells us that they deserve further examination.
We discussed how the book should eventually be published.
Amazon and print-on-demand can make a book available throughout the world remarkably quickly. Traditional academic publishing can take many months, sometimes considerably longer, but may provide editorial scrutiny and academic credibility.
The real question is: Who is the book for?
Is it primarily intended for friends and people already interested in the subject? Is it intended for an academic readership? Or is the ambition to reach an international general audience?
The answer should determine the publishing route rather than the other way round.
Finding one’s own wavelength
There was another subject that emerged from our conversation which is more difficult to describe.
Sometimes I feel that I operate on a rather particular wavelength.
There are subjects about which I think deeply that many people simply aren’t interested in discussing. I can happily talk about the weather, holidays, gardens or the price of coffee—and frequently do—but occasionally I want to go somewhere deeper.
What is consciousness?
What happens when we die?
Why do societies behave as they do?
Why are human beings so easily frightened?
What actually makes a worthwhile life?
You cannot suddenly ask these questions of everyone you encounter at the bus stop.
Consequently, when I meet somebody with whom I can discuss them freely, I feel more completely myself and somewhat less alienated.
Writing serves a similar purpose. I don’t receive a great deal of feedback on everything I write, but that doesn’t particularly matter. The act of writing helps me discover what I think.
Perhaps I need a more varied diet
One conclusion from today’s conversation concerned something much more mundane: I probably think too much.
As a Gemini—if you believe in astrology—I seem to live on ideas. They arrive during the day and sometimes continue well into the night. One thought produces another, which produces another.
Ideas are wonderful things, but perhaps they aren’t sufficient nourishment on their own.
The mind needs variety just as the body needs a varied diet.
There should be periods when I am not writing, researching, analysing or trying to understand the state of the world.
There should be music.
A film occasionally.
A game.
A walk.
Trees.
Fresh air
Reading a book about a subject about which I know very little
A completely pointless conversation.
And sometimes absolutely nothing.
I have to remind myself that taking time off is not a crime. Nature has an extraordinary capacity to restore perspective without saying a single word.
Perhaps that was the real value of today’s telephone call. We began without an agenda and ended up discussing consciousness, politics, fear, death, money, publishing, friendship and the importance of occasionally doing nothing.
None of it was planned.
And that is precisely the point.
A good conversation isn’t merely an exchange of information. It is something two people create between them—and occasionally both emerge from it seeing the world slightly differently.
