One question, several ways in.

You can begin with any of these. Taken together, they move from the words on a page toward the exchange between people.

1. Begin with an exchange

When explaining becomes defending begins with the difference between being understood and being agreed with.

2. Notice who supplies the meaning

Read the book on vocabulary and point of view. Stay with a word you use easily, and consider what becomes visible when someone else uses it differently.

3. Bring another person into the question

What happens when nobody fills the silence asks what we can discover by hearing from the people whose experience we were already explaining.

There is no need to finish a book before beginning a conversation.

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