Someone is talking and your reply is already assembled. You are nodding, you are still in the room, but you are inside your own sentence, waiting for a gap to put it in. Marcus Aurelius wrote one sentence about where to be instead.
Accustom thyself to attend carefully to what is said by another, and as much as it is possible, be in the speaker’s mind.
The sentence asks for two things, and the second is the heavier one. Attend carefully to what is said. Then: be in the speaker’s mind. He is naming a place for your attention to stand, and the place is inside the other person, while they are still talking.
There is a guard in the sentence. As much as it is possible. You cannot get all the way into another person and he does not ask you to. The instruction is to move that way by however much is available in the second you have.
Staying in your own answer has a cost, and the cost is the information. You hear enough of what they are saying to know which of your prepared replies fits, and you miss the part that did not fit anything you had ready. That is often the only part that was not already in the room. You come out of the conversation with your position intact and nothing added to it.
Going into the speaker’s mind costs too. You lose the gap. The reply you had ready does not survive the trip, so you have to make a new one in front of them, out loud, slowly. You also lose the pleasure of having been ready.
So what are we aiming at. We want to be in the speaker’s mind while they are still speaking.
Let us see where this shows up in an ordinary day. Three places.
- Someone at home is telling you about something that happened, and you are holding the thing it reminded you of.
- Someone starts asking a question you have answered before, and you begin answering before they have finished asking.
- Someone disagrees with you, and you spend their sentences locating the flaw in them.
In all three, watch where you are while they are still talking. One question, two answers. Am I in their sentence, or in mine.
You are not deciding anything in that second, and you are not trying to make it come out the right way. Watch where you are standing, and leave it as it is.