The Half-Life of Conversations

When I conceived of this blog, I had this idle fancy that conversations had a kind of half-life. The idea was this:

When you meet people, you begin a conversation which stimulate (or fail to stimulate) mental connections, ideas, aspects of life that interest you or could be of use. As they continue, you build an internal model of future conversation potential. If it's high, you take a liking to someone; if they're a bore, you avoid contact.
You have more conversations with those you like - some turn out to have more energy than the others you thought you liked, and so on. With each friend or favoured contact, there's a concatenation of conversations that unroll partially based on the perceived half-life of your future conversations.

Even within conversations, some topics have a large 'half-life' - taking a long time before they decay to half their previous potential. Others run out of steam almost before you've begun. They leave you struggling to talk and barely go beyond a single sentence each.

My central example was meeting Emily at the formal at Oxford. Immediately spotted extremely high future conversation potential e.g. literature + california and the us/uk aspects of my life. I couldn't have foretold quite how much I enjoy speaking to her, but from the start her words brought immense pleasure.

However, on further reflection, the half-life analogy is an extremely weak analogy with only a little merit. Here are some criticisms:

1. Bear with me.

EM Forster famously introduced a distinction in novels between flat and round (or rounded) characters. (I should admit to not having read this essay or anything by him.) Flat characters basically have certain mechanical traits, are easily recognisable and add depth to the round characters by juxtaposition. Round characters have complex psychologies, curious relationships with others, more profound narrative arcs and a more recognisably 'human' interaction with the world.

We can immediately see the benefits of the model - especially when understanding the 19th century novel. On the other hand, it's been much criticised - for the obvious reason that Foster's contemporaries, the modernists, and even to some extent Foster himself, messed with the distinction to evoke the actual complexity of lives. Some flat characters later seem rounded, while other rounded characters later seem flat. Or characters seem a mixture of the two.

Yet I can't help but feel that mentally, in order to cope, one has to do this. For instance, there's the guy in the corner shop who you buy something from, and is more a cipher for your purchase than the 'heartbeat of a culture' (as Derek Walcott once described street markets). In some ways, he's a flat character. But your friends - for me, the Alex Ks, Aleks Ks, Laura Fs, Laura Ns, Nick W, Andy B, Theo and Lucas Ws, etc - they're extremely well rounded.

Except at some times - you make judgments about your friends and they're simplified far beyond the full extent of their lives. And to most people, passing them in the street or even encountering them at a lecture, a gig where the band's not the main event for them, a seminar, a publishing house - they're the flat characters.

And although my dad says that most people are boring, even the most boring people must have something interesting about them in order to have lived, and to survive in the ever-changing now. I remember encountering this guy at a bar in Seattle who insisted "I am so boring." The deadpan tone was unforgettable. I asked about his hobbies - "mostly I do nothing. Sometimes I skate. But mostly I'm do nothing. I'm so boring" That to me was really interesting. Yeah he was a flat character, but I guess I'd never encountered something like that part of the Seattle scene before: - where to some, it's second nature to resist modern liberal democracy's insistence we are all 'interesting' individuals.

I have particularly found that while I mostly know who I'm going to have a good conversation with, people I think are boring often surprise me. Just when you'd written them off as a flat character, you strike on a rich seam of conversation that opens up another world on them. There's one girl I know, whose pretty boring if you just attempt spontaneous conversation with her, but choose your topic well and hold to it and she becomes surprisingly interesting. So conversational strategies - even the structure of your thought and expression - can radically alter your perception of an other.

Your dress sense and how/where you encounter someone - what you notice about them - what clue you can pick up as to who they are - these all impinge on the conversational traits, and the level of assuredness in speaking with the other person, that you have with them. What persona you decide to adopt - ach! the list is endless.

Also, life experiences can change who seems interesting and who doesn't - both their life experiences and yours. I remember not finding Alex K particularly interesting until my final year at Oxford. Even then, it wasn't till we spent significant time together in London that we realised what we had in common, a rich conversational potential and our current strong friendship.

And sure to many, I must be flat too. Certainly at classes at law school, I tend to affect less imagination than I have. Although when I can and am in the mood, I let it show. Perhaps it would be better to say that people have flat and rounded sides. Discovering the rounded side can be a tricky task, and by no means worth it - but sometimes it pays dividends.

The linear half-life analogy just doesn't give a good enough account of agency, and our ability to recognise it as something that can be harnessed or adopted.

The remaining arguments are shorter, I promise.

2. We all have on and off days. Some people I seem able to have endless conversations with. But even with them, there are days that no matter what I or they do, we both fail to inject our conversation with any spirit or liveliness. Mood, tiredness, over-exposure to the other, preoccupations and distractions - they all affect how much bubbliness there is to any conversation.

3. Equally, there are people who we have conversations with more frequently just because of the circumstances. We'd rather speak to someone else, but that person is the person available, or the person we have to deal with. And then we just grow comfortable with their conversation, and rather like it, even though with more effort we could be talking to someone else. Anybody who understands Waiting for Godot will get this. It's one of the reasons we feel the play has a point. Sometimes conversation is just for conversations sake. And the theory of drama shows that the art of conversation can be endlessly studied.

4. Finally I suppose commitment to others' imagination changes the game. Perhaps I'm wrong, and some people are doomed to be flat characters to everybody. In our hotel in Washington, every day at breakfast Emily and I heard this Californian guy who we presumed was in DC to lobby on behalf of Israel. And he just rotated the same conversations over and over and over again. No matter where someone was from, it was like - 'Where are you from? How do you say hello in your language? Oh - that's interesting I have to write that down.' Needless to say, he was extraordinarily flat.

Other people become flat through misfortune. Perhaps an extreme is dementia or Alzheimer's. My granny (who has dementia) repeats the same stories over and over again - and while interesting in themselves, they wear down and wear down. What's more, she knows she's doing it but can't help herself.
I, in the fortunate position that I don't have to granny-sit for long periods of time, try to help her out. I ask questions about things she must know about, that I'm very curious about because there's so much missing for me about her life. And mum is always surprised when I find a new story that's still there in her imagination - but she'd forgotten how to access.

Perhaps it's naive to think you can pry imagination out of any person you meet. I certainly want to believe it, but know that there are a lot of people out there where it's like digging for water in a desert. Still I think it's equally naive to totally give up on people when you've barely given them a chance. So much is accident and mood.

Letter to Zeeshan: Reflections on Washington DC

Hi Zeeshan,

I thought I'd send you my thoughts on Washington, as promised.

The Subway

-seemed very polished and refined compared to New York.

-Our first subway ride, this intelligent black student opposite us was riffing off cynically about advertising and the limited funding sources of the internet compared to the sites' current valuations. Quite an interesting analysis - possible future bubble?

-Alerted me to the mixture of cynicism and idealism that I imagined paired in the city.

-obviously the massive gaps in the system have a major effect on the desirability of areas. Particularly north v centre. 

It kind of reminds me of south (and to a lesser extent, east) London, dominated by the bus system, v the centre, north or west.

National Museums

Our first night we enjoyed Dupont Circle, but as our first day and a half were dominated by museums/Capitol, I thought I'd discuss those first.

Day 1

-One thing I noticed, though more on our half-day at the Capitol, was how Americans use 'Nation' or 'Federal' (context-dependent), we use 'state.' Clearly that's because these two are different in the US, whereas the major force of our history until the past eighty or so years has been towards centralisation in a single imperial regime so, particularly as a Londoner, I identify nation with state and, to some extent, our state welfare system.

Emily (my girlfriend) has gripes with the glorification of Jefferson, whose major contribution, it seems to her, was in the field of states rights. She thinks this was a bad turn. I don't know enough to be able to say.

-Emily wanted to take me to the American History museum to learn more about this country of which I am a citizen. She had fond memories.

-We visited many exhibitions, spending all of 2 hours looking round the museum (a long time considering we had 2.5 days in Washington).

-I hardly learned anything. It was so broad-brush and lacking in detail. When the guidebook said 'popular', I didn't realise this meant populist and dumbed down. It did cover in a vaguish way the migrational quality of America, and some major transitions in the different communities of which it comprised. But for me it was too much "by the people of the people for the people" to my taste.

-Emily was even more disappointed than I was. One of her favourite theatrical experiences was seeing the musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, the populist who made way for George W.

-They did have an exhibit digging into Jefferson's slave history , but to her it was too soft on him, constantly trying to redeem the unreedemable.

-Here, at the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, and elsewhere, the importance of slavery to US history seemed inescapable. Now I have watched Ken Burns' The Civil War all the way through so I was somewhat aware, but it had never totally registered.

I was trying to compare it to dominant narratives in UK history ('Great Britain' is no longer used much in local discourse - only on tourist ads and at the Olympics - areas where jingoism is seen as great and worthy; instead we fashion ourselves after the game leader, the US). We don't discuss slavery that much. A little on Wilberforce here and there. But then though we introduced slavery to you guys, we abolished it over 50 years before the US. And our major populace with slave history came to England from the 1950s onwards, with the return from former colonies of Afro-caribbean, other ancestors of African 'subjects' and other postcolonial figures.

And then it dawned on me: our equivalent is colonialism. Anti-imperialism is a modern piety of UK society. We are embarrassed, afflicted. It's our national shame, but in it the memory of 'our' former 'greatness.'

-Each nation has its nation shame. Generally in history, national growth is most efficiently achieved by exploitation and hegemonic dominance of an other. Japan had its Manchuria, Germany its 'Lebensraum', its 'inferior races.' Wasn't an element of WW2 just a last gasp of a curtailed power trying to grasp imperialism?

-It's a somewhat depressing view of history, but as Emily put it, 'Don't you think that's true? I can't think of a counterexample.'

-Emily decided to drop history at Columbia university when she realised her interest in social history was not reflected by the Columbia faculty. She much preferred the fun (and often sillier nature) of English Lit.

-We would have been better off going to half a dozen other places - the Capitol, the Portrait Gallery and Museum of American Art, the National Archives - for some real history.

Museum of the American Indian

-cool cafe. Lots of good food and a nice twist on 'ethnic food' - bringing five different 'environments' of food from different 'other america' landscapes. As Emily's medieval cookbook says, attitudes towards food and eating are often one of the most revealing about a society's values, culture, formalities, celebrations, etc.

-'Other Universes' promised to tell us about other belief systems. But it was so politically correct - finding convergences between modern values and tribal ideas, then dousing the tribal ideas in them - that it rarely gave any sense of 'other universes.' 

-I said happy International Women's Day to Emily on Thursday (after I'd got back). Emily says America doesn't do 'internationalism' and hates women (well, particularly Republican candidates and their supporters; but then the Clintons are quite interesting too.). To be fair, I was only aware because it's a holiday in Russia and dad and my brother Max decided to celebrate it for our mum at an Italian restaurant.

-'Our Peoples' was better - showing all the tricks, deal and wars that enabled the colonisation of the US away from the Indians. Would have liked to have spent more time in it.

The National Gallery -

-many astonishing works of art. Superb collection. 

-'Woman Holding A Balance' is such a rapturously delicate composition by Vermeer. The way balance, handwork, judgment, care, cloth and jewels are held in careful tension is brilliant. It makes one think about the little acts necessary in any work, the balance of judgment required for achievement. Emily's favourite experience of the museums.

-Mary Cassatt has many stronger areas of bold colour in her paintings than any of her European contemporaries in Paris. Is it because Paris is much greyer than Pennsylvania on a day-to-day basis? Being a huge fan of Derek Walcott's Tiepolo's Hound which argues that Pissarro's move from St Thomas to Pontoise brought colour to the impressionists, I'm quite interested in this.

The Museum of Air and Space

-always drawn to these things. As a kid, I really liked the idea of space travel. (Cue memories of 'You're from space!') Also my grandfather was a pilot and (in the spirit of Zionism) changed our family name to Doeh, meaning pilot in Hebrew.

-exhibitions on 'Early Flight' and the 'Golden Age of Flight' were informative and intriguing in the heroic glow of barrier-breaking pilots. Shows my grandfather's enamoration with flight was part of an era.

-Was happily surprised by the cutting-edge nature of many of the space exhibits. Especially the 'What's new?' parts at the end of each exhibit, showing genuinely recent findings. Cool to learn about different atmospheres, terrains and systems of other planets in our solar system. Also that there are bucky balls out in space. A kids tv program talking about protons, neutrons, neutrinos - really not dumbing down at all!

-my favourite museum.

National Portrait Gallery/Museum of American Art - another superb collection. Interesting that the history here was so much more particular. Really explored the narratives behind people, and the place of their art in American society e.g. Catlin and his quest to represent the vanishing world of American Indians. From what I saw of Annie Liebowitz, would also recommend seeing her photography if an exhibition ever passes your way.

Day 2

The Capitol

-The tour was informative and concise. As a 'foreigner', I got to see Congress. Emily explained it was much more formal than our pantomime-like debating chamber. I imagine there's a code of conduct congressmen have to learn. The new visiting centre nicely encapsulated some mainstream history - many bits of which I was not aware. 

The Supreme Court - didn't have time to go in the room itself, but enjoyed an exhibit on the reforming court led by Edward White 1909-1921. I believe the pro-competition and anti-merger law (e.g. the "Rule of Reason") was 50 years in advance of our own, only really approaching the same level when joining the EU in 1974. But then I don't know what our law was like prior to that, not having studied law in any academic depth (the conversion course spoon-feeds the absolute essentials of academic law in 1 year and that's all you do academically if you follow that route).

Library of Congress - awesome great hall and dome. Superb exhibitions on US cartoons and 'exploring the early americas'. We bought "1491" in KramerBooks before we left.

Botanic Gardens - great that this was pushing humanity's eco-history and climate change. Really informative. Surprised that Republicans hadn't insisted that this not be funded by public money.

Folger Shakespeare Library- good exhibit on female writers of the Renaissance and 17th Century. A relatively under-researched area.

Everything Else

Food and Drink

-evening 1: KramerBooks. I had Malaysian goat with pappardelle; Emily had a salad, I think. We both loved the food. Thanks for the tip. 

KramerBooks is a magnificent bookstore, with the only problem that there are so many fascinating books it's hard to leave.

Then on to Eighteenth Street Lounge. Many trashy booze-guzzling places near here which didn't appeal to Emily; almost didn't see it as there's no sign.

Beautiful decor, chandeliers, classy walls,etc - loved the funky beats. Disappointing cocktail, but moved on to decent wine. Like that the cocktails were named after Thievery Corporation tunes. Pretentious frat boys hired out the attic. They so conformed to stereotype we were glad they'd voluntarily segregated themselves. Extremely enjoyable evening.

-lunch 1: MOAI as mentioned above. It was recommended by Teaism when we passed through there on our first night in Dupont Circle. Would have dearly loved to buy tea from Teaism, but it was too dear.

-evening 2: Pizzeria Paradiso with my cousin Sarah Brody. My major memory of conversation was explaining how my dad loved Russia partially because communism froze the 'old-world' style intelligentsia there before democracy got its hands on it. Dad likes this cultivated atmosphere. His complacency about Putin is starting to worry me. Things could go seriously tits up.

Bier Baron: had a great award-winning beer. Our favourite of the trip.

-lunch 2: Selam [an Ethiopian restaurant recommended by Zeeshan]. 3pm on our second day. Food was great. My favourite meal of the trip. Massive bread pancakes neither of us could finish. And there was so much good food in Adams Morgan too.

Mid-afternoon: turkish bites at Meze. couldn't resist. Gooood food. Possibly a bit silly to have eaten so soon after Selam.

Late-afternoon: Chaucer's Cup tea at Tryst. Great atmosphere and selection. Is Tryst named after the conspiracy in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49? Never seen it spelt like that elsewhere, and it fits the 'third way' account of itself it puts on its website.

Evening 2: Himalayan restaurant. My food was an uneven mix but it had this lentil thing that was superb and lovely spicy potatoes and Emily had great ravioli with squash in them. Not something you see too often. A little closer to Indian food than the Tibetan place Emily had attempted to find for me in NY.

Architecture

Washington has a lot of spectacular architecture. Particularly liked Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan. But I feel I have rabbitted on too long.

OK - so that email was a bit long. I hope it doesn't interrupt your studies and that you enjoy it/I haven't repeated too many things you've already know or have thought of.

Best wishes,

Ben