I am writing to understand and remember

Wednesday - conversation club

I went to “Conversation club”- a project by Richard Hylerstedt- a guy I got in contact with through a friend that meet him a a party. Conversation club is a group of people meeting in the evening, drinking tea and discussing. I meet Richard for a conversation (just the two of us) a couple of weeks back, and at that point he invited me to join the conversation club the 3rd of Mach. This is the third one he had, had he started the project in January.

I knew Richard from a 1 1/2 hour long conversation, and no one else in the club (even though it turned out that I had one participant in my project there, and that she know many of my classmates). We where eight people at the most. We just started talking, and I was soon provoked when there was a talk about “doing what you want rather than earning money”, where I got an urge to put them into reality. I have no problem seeing where they are coming from, I do agree, but I know there is more to it than either or- and I know it is hard to live in our society without knowing if you have money the next month. Anyway, I realised how provoked I was, but I couldn’t help myself. And it is actually quite liberating- it is not that often I get really provoked by a opinion a stranger has. Throughout the hole three hour conversation it was mostly myself, and two guys talking, and somewhat a third guy. Everyone else said something now and then- but they where definitely more in the background. One girl opened her mouth once I think. And here is where I found, and now I have proofs, that it is hard to reach the conversation I am aiming for by having that many participants. First of all; in a group some people will lead (I know I am like that- I have a hard time keeping my mouth shot). And because there are many voices it can be hard to dig into the subject, because there will not be time for pauses, to think before, or while, one formulate oneself- there are too many people present wanting to talk. To me this conversation was more about getting several different views (with I also appreciate- and which I define as good conversation) on subjects, than coming up with new knowledge together. There where a couple of moments where we reaching something together- but is was very brief, and I guess that was what I was missing in this experience; there was no calm- no space- there where more of a “fight” to talk. I am exaggerating here, but I am trying to clarify it for myself. The pace was quite fast, we didn’t “stay” in a subject for long, and I wanted to say much more than I was able too (even though I was one of the most aggressive talkers).

So, I believe, as before, that it benefit the type of conversation that I am after to have a small group, or maybe even two people for conversations. It is an interesting concept Rikard has made, and I might be joining it again to see how it changes- it is close to what I do- but it is not what I wanna do. After the conversation club Sofie, one conversation member, and I went back to Malmö together- and ended up walking home from the station. In this situation I found my kind of good conversation- it went between more superficial subjects, and deeper thoughts- but it went “in and out”, and I felt the space, and the time to be able to think while I was talking, and be honest in the situation. I need to make that film about good conversation- it is so hard to put into words…

12.00 - 13.00: Interview with participant

14.00 - 17.30: Write mails to participants and blog

19.00 - 23.10: Conversation club + walk and talk

In total: 8 hours 40 minutes