A Meeting of the Minds

I enjoy getting together with friends and family and getting into deep discussions rather than daily trivia. We are not a family that likes to gossip about other people and this stems way back to my great grandparents at least. It is one thing to do “catch up” news about one’s friends, what they are doing now and how they are faring with their job, life and family but it is quite another thing to talk about random people around town. Generally the nature of these talks is not on the nice side, let’s just keep it at that.

I like to talk about ideas and we can sometimes get pretty loud, even when we are agreeing with each other. That is a definite paternal habit we have acquired from our Dad. Sometimes? Well, almost always, actually. My poor in-laws and even some of the grandkids find it a little intense sometimes but others get right in there with us.

Not for us the taboos of other folks. We thoroughly enjoy politics, religion and any other hot button topics which is one of the reasons I so enjoy The View. I like my book club when we get a controversial book and can go for it with our opinions, which often are not aligned with each other. My friends know that when it comes to adultery I am going to go wild on the discussion. My mother will literally crack up when I talk about adultery and how I would deal with it (it’s not pretty).

Some of my family members are so opposite in current topics that we can almost get hostile and certainly impatient with each other. However at the end of the discussion we agree to disagree and there is no harm, no foul. In some ways I believe we refresh each other with these very opposite opinions.

It’s not for everyone, I know. Most people are rather uncomfortable with disagreement and also with loud voices. My friend Marie’s husband Paul is slightly deaf and (I think naturally) has a loud voice. She was very anxious once when we were visiting and Paul and I were going at it in great style. She was so worried that I was getting upset and I said “What, Paul is an amateur compared to my Dad! I am used to loud voices and love to be in disagreement. Paul and I are having a great time!” Which we were.

Maybe not a meeting of the minds, but a meeting of lovely “discussion”. J