My parents took Susan, the girls and me to see Ira Glass last night. It was incredibly valuable.The most exciting part was Ira’s discussion of his narrative method. The formula he gave:

Story [Pause] Story [Pause] Story [Pause] Reflection

This reminded me of an idea I first grasped reading Kuhn (on how students learn the sense of scientific theories) and recently re-read in Bernstein:

To Gadamer, the hermeneutical process used in making a legal judgment exemplifies the hermeneutical process as a whole. Gadamer argues that the judge does not simply “apply” fixed, determinate laws to particular situations. Rather the judge must interpret and appropriate precedents and law to each new, particular situation. It is by virtue of such considered judgment that the meaning of the law and the meaning of the particular case are codetermined. “We can, then, bring out as what is truly common to all forms of hermeneutics the fact that the sense to be understood finds its concrete…form only in interpretation, but that this interpretative work is wholly committed to the meaning of the text.”

Ira’s formula reverses my usual way of communicating: Reflection Reflection Reflection Story [Pause] “are you still with me?”I have great hope that this method will improve my communication effectiveness. That doesn’t mean all my posts will follow this formula, because my posts are how I clarify my own thoughts to myself, but I will certainly use it in practical situations, especially at work.

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Ira also said something striking that I consider to be the essence of Jewishnes: Empathy is the essence of sanity.

Other useful insights:

A good story is easy to visualize.

“Dialogue is golden.” Include real dialogue in stories. Dialogue slows the story to the speed of the actual event.