15 Comments

this sounds like the start of a romcom…

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Please, do bore us with her responses!

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Hmmmm. And the title of her book is . . . ?

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Link to her book please!

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ha, well, I'm not sure it would be quite right to out her. I always feel a bit weird about publicizing ostensibly private conversations, which is why I try to keep people anonymous :) Also, I forgot the title tbh lol

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I was interested to know what followed,

how do we come to know what we want?

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Honestly, I don't know if I have a good answer to that question. We're unreliable narrators of our own lives. Which is sort of, indirectly at least, a case for religion. It gives us an external anchor outside of our own self-deception.

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This really connected with me. Oftentimes when taking a taxi and the driver tries to strike up a conversation by asking me what I do, and I say I lecture in Politics, the wall of resistance comes crashing down. Sometimes the conversations are fascinating, which is why I generally engage as you never know what you'll uncover. But it's a risk as for every really interesting dialogue there are at least 2 which you just nod along to as you see the emails pile up on the phone.

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Sam, belatedly, glad the piece resonated! yes, I think you might on to something with the 2:1 ratio ha

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Just my experience but yeah it's usually quite a risk that it'll not be fun nor interesting!

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If I had been in that Uber, I hope I would have had the guts to say, "I'm sorry, but I really don't want to have a conversation."

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but it was a great conversation! you just have to make that initial decision to be open to it, productivity be damned

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Mar 10
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belatedly, thanks so much for the kind note. glad the piece resonated to that extent!

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