Friday, May 27, 2022

In dialogue with Amman Madan

I attended a course on conflict resolution with Amman Madan. I learnt a lot on conflicts and how important is peace studies. Currently, as I'm in the university, I got a chance to catch up with him over a lunch. 

Over a lunch on a friday afternoon, Amman and I discussed on how I'm struggling to be aware of myself and my thoughts during conversations. 'I want to be there and actively listen but, my biases creep in and turn me impatient to respond' I shared. 

How can I work on this? I asked. 

Educating ourselves on these concepts and the logic of the concepts would helps us,' he suggested. It's just like, 'learning to dance. Practicing until we get the movement and step right.' We need to practice continuously, he shared. 

In Language, it's called Pragmatics. In sociology, it can be called as ethnomethodology. Just below our consciousness, we have our behavior embedded. We need to work on that, he  suggested. Need to study more on it. 

In the beginning for you, how difficult was it to practice to be there and listen? I asked. Was it easy? Was it comfortable? I further questioned. 

'I was always in the hostile mode,' he shared. Anyone who knows Amman Madan now would have hard time to imagine, how he can act in such way. 'Maintaining the low tone, I was attacking constantly. Identifying itself that I'm attacking itself, made me realize that I need to work on it.' he recollected his past. 'There are many things that I never identified. "The recent thing I could identify with myself is, as day passes, I'm getting tired easily. I'm thinking if I should take naps in between or take breaks. I'm still working on it." Need to continuously work on, he shared. 

Listening to Amman on how he struggles, I feel we're all in together. It's okay to be in the process. The person I look up to makes it more human to struggle by sharing his struggled. This gives immense confidence to work on my behavior without giving up. 

Thanks Amman for the time and conversations. 

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