Imagination should be used sparingly and judiciously in human communication. It can impede listening. If someone is trying to say something and you’re dreaming up the next thing you want to say there’s little chance that you’ll hear them. Imagination can easily turn any conversation into a one-way speech.
Frida Kahlo: I am in so much pain, Diego. I want to go home.
Diego Rivera: I shall have a special chair crafted for you, Frida, a better one. It will be made of wood of special properties. I know just where we can get it. And the metal of the spokes will be of pure brass, as pure as your heart, my love, and…
Kahlo: I’m in agony Diego, please turn us around and go home. The path is too bumpy here.
Rivera: I will sand the chair smooth myself and paint it. And we will have it blessed, Frida. The priest you like so much will place on it his holiest water and maybe it will heal…
Kahlo: Home, Diego!
Rivera: You don’t want a new chair? Why are you ungrateful? I know that you will love it.
Most conversations are not speeches, or at least they shouldn’t be. This goes also for conflict resolution, which is largely about listening. The number of times where straight up listening is required in human communication compared to imagination makes imagination barely necessary in effective communication sometimes.
[Frida Kahlo}
