Tue Dec 12 2023

Continuing our series on verbal judo, today we discuss the idea of abstracting up. Language is funny. There is concrete tangible language (words like dog, sidewalk, tree, table) and then there are these words that are abstract more idea or category based (canine, walking routes, forest, furniture). Where you can picture the first category of words in your mind easily, the second not so much or at least less so. Knowing the difference here is incredibly helpful when you face a problem in a conversation where you reach an impasse or roadblock. Often it feels impossible to solve the problem, navigate the conversation. However, if we learn to move up a level of abstraction, we gain the ability to engage with a wider conversational field. This wider field is still talking about the very same topic, it just offers us the ability to find new ways to navigate the conversation.