One of the biggest problems we face today, both online and offline, is a lack of conversational intelligence. I don’t mean that we can’t talk. I mean that our ability to talk more deeply and interact with each other’s ideas and respond thoughtfully has been greatly diminished.
Conversational intelligence doesn’t just mean having an opinion.
Marcus Aurelius says it beautifully.
“You always own the option of having no opinion.”
Conversational intelligence doesn’t just mean having an opinion about everything. Sometimes we have to process complex thoughts and react to them without our own feelings. It means putting ourselves in the shoes of the person who said it and then deciding what our reaction is. You shouldn’t see everything as zero and one.
What I feel is that people today want to jump to conclusions. It’s impossible. It’s not organic and natural. Maybe it’s because of the social media and it’s made us receive a lot of information in 1 minute without even focusing on any of it. Social media has made us think lazy.
One of the ways that I think can help is to reduce reading. We read less deep things like novels. Reading teaches us patience and data analysis. It trains our brains to be able to break down complex concepts and penetrate deeper into their layers.
When people don’t read, when people They don’t see, and when people don’t listen and are only exposed to short, concise content like a tweet or a minute-long video, they lose their mental stamina for a deep conversation. I’ve even seen people watch movies at 2x speed.
The good news is that this skill can be trained. I hope that in the future, conversational intelligence will be strengthened between people. Because the world is really meaningless without real, meaningful conversations with each other.