Friday, June 26, 2020

Arriving in France


“If you want to learn a language, you have to give it life”, explains Gabriel Wyner of Fluent Forever. When I was playing poker, my friends and I would have endless analogies of life situations and starting hands. We called Ace-King, Anna Kournikova (looks good, never wins). I am more convinced that both Wealth Creation and Prejudice are like languages. You can’t just dive into a conversation about Money or Race in the same way as you can’t just land in France and speak French. You have to build up a vocabulary. To do that, you have to train your mouth to say the words. To do that, you have to train your ear to hear the words. Everything we hear, see, say, and think is deeply connected. So deeply, we aren’t even conscious of why we think what we think. Even though we are good at adding defences or explanations to justify. Giving life is a slow process of paying attention, absorbing, and gradually reconstructing your reality in a richer way. That starts by relaxing your automatic responses. Noting them, but letting them pass. Creating space to explore rather than debate. Space to give life.


First trip to France (1999)

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