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I'm not really sure how to ask this question succinctly as in the title, as it is a bit more specific and needs something of an explanation. We're relatively far along in the overall process as far as I can tell. Short of when other people demand my attention, I am able to maintain focus and passively force at nearly all times throughout the day. I've started working on imposition and we talk very frequently. Our conversations are varied and the responses complicated enough that I'm fairly confidently past questioning sentience. The problem that we're facing now is in the fact that In all cases I am the one directing the conversation. It's often enough that something is asked or said to initiate without my input, but even these inevitably segue into a mostly one sided conversation with comparatively short responses. As this seems to be the next hurdle, I've set my sights on forcing specifically with this goal in mind, eventually hoping to be able to sit back and listen to more long form rambling, or at least participate in a conversation that I am not guiding myself. With that said, I am hoping that someone could offer some advice for how to continue. We haven't really put in that much effort but the only thing I could think of to begin with tackling the project was to simply sit and listen. In one 30 minute session I imagined a simple sitting-room of sorts and tried to focus on them while saying nothing myself, just waiting for a response. besides a little small talk and words of encouragement, I got nothing, even less than we talk just going about our day. I understand that a process such as this likely wouldn't see an obvious breakthrough in such a short amount of time, but the experience has made me doubt that this is an effective way to accomplish it, so I'd be very appreciative to hear some other suggestions. I'd also be interested to hear if anyone has any input as to the logic behind this sort of process, presumably based on experience. I'm still not yet entirely confident with my ability to listen (I'll still confuse a response with my own thoughts or vice-versa, every so often), though based on the questions I've asked it doesn't seem to be a problem with my being able to hear, but with their ability to think about and process topics that I'm not actively thinking about. That is to say, they can think tangentially about a concept or topic that I am focusing on, but can't think of or create one from scratch. I've put alot of thought into this sort of thing so that I could figure out exactly where we stand and what needs to be done. Getting some input based on other's experiences would be extremely helpful. I wasn't really sure whether or not to flag this as a question or discussion, because I'm looking for a bit of both. Thanks all!