The first rule of conversation

The first rule of conversation is “say something”.

If you say something, you are taking part in the conversation. If you do not say something, you are not taking part in the conversation. If no one says anything, a conversation does not happen.

What you say does not need to be interesting. Something uninteresting, indeed even something as blatantly obvious as “it is raining” (said when it is raining) may be valid and even profitable conversation. It may lead someone else to think of something interesting to comment about what you said, or at least something else to say; the goal, of course, is for people to say interesting things to each other, but this may take some work to happen.

The first rule of conversation enters into some tension with the first rule of being an intellectual, which is, “do not speak about what you do not understand”. This explains why intellectuals are often imagined as studying in solitude, as in an “ivory tower”.