Status Updates From De kunst van mensen kennen

Tips to be a good conversationalist:
Give your full attention. Use the SLANT method: sit up, lean forward, ask questions, nod head, track the speaker.
Be a responsive (“loud”) listener (min. qualifiers), but don’t fear silence.
Favor familiarity- ask them about what they already know/experience
Ask follow-up details about their story, including thoughts&feelings. Then ask them how they experience the event NOW.

Constructionism: we as humans don’t take in objective reality, we actively construct our own perception of reality.
“People don’t see the world with their eyes they see it with their entire life”
As we try and know others, we need to ask ourselves how they are perceiving this moment, how they are constructing their reality.

Accompanying is the first gentle step to getting to know a person, without over-intensity of diving in too deep. We can’t be in a rushed “efficiency” mindset that prioritizes our own mindset & will.
Elements of Accompaniment include patience & playfulness & presence. We can’t force it- “let others voluntarily evolve”.
The ultimate touchstone of friendship is WITNESS- the privilege of seeing & being seen.

Philosopher Iris Murdock on morality: Not about abstract universal principles.
Morality is about how we pay attention to others; moral behavior happens continuously throughout the day. The essential immoral act is the inability to see other people correctly. When we don’t see people accurately, we treat them wrongly. Evil happens when people are unseen- when the personhood in other human beings is unrecognized.

“Every epistemology becomes an ethic. The shape of our knowledge becomes the shape of our living. The relation of the knower to the known becomes the relation of the living self to the larger world.”
(Parker Palmer)
The way we attend to others determines the type of person we become. If we see people generously then we will become generous. If we see people coldly then we become cold.

Illuminator Qualities:
Tenderness- deep emotional concern about another being
Receptivity- openness to another’s viewpoint and resisting the urge to project your own reality
Active Curiosity
Affection
Generosity
A holistic attitude (seeing the whole, with nuance)