Mapping Good Conversations
reflecting on four years of hosting online and in-person salons with strangers and friends
Welcome to The Flâneurs Project. This post is part of our Mapping Conversations series. By subscribing, you’re supporting my writing and becoming part of our small community. Paid subscribers are invited once a month to an online gathering, 🌎 Mapping Places, where we share stories and map our next adventures, supporting each other in our quest to discover more of the world.
“Ah, good conversation — there’s nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.”
― Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
My experience hosting over thirty online conversations
Last night I was going through four years of salon notes, Zoom chats, photos, screenshots, presentations, handwritten notes, drawings, saved articles, papers, and books. To analyse them all with the goal of extracting some learnings or patterns is not the purpose of this post. I went through them to indulge and overindulge in the aftermath pleasure of good conversations, and also to seek for the promises that good conversations can hold.
I started hosting online salons for Interintellect in the autumn of 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was living in a village in Switzerland back then, having recently moved to this beautiful country - in which I was immediately and officially locked in. Reflecting back on this time, it feels surreal. I was living in a small Swiss house by the Zug lake, surrounded by mountains, and I was spending my nights in three- to four-hour video conversations with strangers from around the world, not knowing when we would be able to travel again.
My first salon was entitled, quite on brand, A Philosophy of Walking. Eighteen people showed up to discuss what brings them joy whilst walking in their cities and when travelling abroad. The chat was buzzing for almost four hours straight, even past midnight. We were all taking turns in sharing our experiences, our stories, our desires, our questions. I still vividly remember an attendee’s story on how he was always “constructing a mind palace while walking.”
The second salon I hosted was entitled Talking with Strangers, a sold-out online salon in which thirty-five strangers joined to talk about … talking with strangers. When we finished the conversation, again past midnight, I left knowing that I made many friends. With many of them I am still in contact today, even after almost four years.
I kept following my curiosities and the topics which brought me alive: walking, visual intelligence, talking with strangers, wine rituals, enjoying the unknown, serendipities, art curation, books on travel, storytelling, sci-fi, and so on. I knew that if I deeply cared about the topic, then I could focus on bringing deep care and attention when hosting - even if I didn’t consider myself an expert in some of these areas.
In March this year I attended an & The Table dinner in Amsterdam. As I was talking with the host, Connie, she shared that she felt a bit selfish that she only chose topics that she couldn’t stop thinking about. But we all agreed at that table that night that we need to be a bit selfish, and follow our own stories. We need to invite people who also ask themselves the same questions and who actually need these types of conversations. That’s how the magic happens - because we deeply care about the questions raised at the table, about the stories we share, about the people sharing these stories, and about leaving those conversations a little bit changed.
Heaven is other people
Last year when I attended the Realisation Festival in the UK, I kept overhearing in conversations that: “heaven is other people.” That’s how I feel about salons and bringing people together in conversations.
I think our biggest wealth in terms of the human experience is being with people, learning from people, and proactively nurturing our need for good conversations.
What I’ve learned
Pick a subject that you want to explore long-term.
Pick a salon topic whose questions you can carry with you long-term: in your research, in your personal life, in the work that you want to do. This way, it becomes an infinite conversation.
Ensure an intimate, friendly, safe space for all participants. Always.
Being a host is a big responsibility. If you cannot care for the well-being of all your attendees, then pick another co-host, or ask a friend to help you. The best salons I hosted or attended were vulnerable salons, salons in which the participants trusted that they could open up and share, and be present. Trust doesn’t just happen. We need to actively design such spaces, and maintain them.
Write to the people that you want to keep in touch with.
If you want to keep in touch with someone from a salon, send them a personalised message or email right away. Propose a call, or a meeting, or invite them to another salon - or simply write them a thank you note. It works wonders, and it also feels so good to proactively act on our desires to keep in touch with someone.
“The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully.”
―Horace, Epistolas Ad Pisones De Ars Poetica
Horace wrote in Ars Poetica that poetry should both instruct and delight. I wholeheartedly think this applies to good conversations as well. By instructing I mean constantly renewing our worldviews, learning something new from each other. By delight, I mean the pleasure of human connection, of curiosity for each other and the world.
Thank you for reading! As always, I welcome your comments, emails, and stories. You can always book an intro call with me here.
Onwards,
Patricia
I’ve always loved facilitating small-group discussions but haven’t done it in a while. This makes me want to apply to host an Interintellect salon.
Thanks for sharing your story and takeaways — we need more conversation about what makes for good conversation.
Curious about your next salon ?