Conversation...

I had a conversation about conversations yesterday. We talked about the opening up and closing down of conversations. About dialogues and monologues. About questions and curiosity. I thought, nobody teaches us how to converse. We learn by example and through participation, but generally in an unreflective way. That is, we might reflect on the content of a conversation but seldom, I suspect, on the conversational process and our part in it. Yet conversation is the foundation on which relationships are built, at work, at home, face-to-face, electronically, every day...  Conversations are relational - speaking, listening, giving, taking. Yet how often do we talk at, past or beyond one another? How often do we cease to hear because we are so intent on formulating our own contribution?