Oil change day. A perfect time and place to strike up a conversation with a fellow stuck-in-the-waiting-room citizen of the community. He was about my age. We started talking about the longevity of our vehicles and our desire to drive them until they were completely dead. One thing led to another until he said, “I don’t need no friends. I have 10 brothers and sisters. If I want to talk to someone, I call one of them. Dad wouldn’t allow any fighting ‘tween us. There are not many families our size anymore.”

I smiled reflexively at all the wisdom packed into those few words: the role of friends and family, strong parenting, connection in and of family over decades and much more. Families were not the focus of our conversation; his observation just drifted through.

I didn’t come from a big family; I was the caboose of a four-child train, one of which had died by the time I came along, and the oldest who was graduating from high school the month I was born. He and I never lived in the same house. So, I had to use a little imagination, the recollection of watching larger families when I was a kid, and recollections from books like Cheaper by the Dozen to better understand what the man said.  All of those influences come from a time far different than today. In fact, what he and I were talking about just prior to the topic of families came up was 2020, the year that wreaked havoc in so many ways.

As I observe mankind that is so splintered, factional and on edge, individually and collectively, the man’s words sit in front of me as a lens to improve my vision, a filter to sift current conditions through and a contrast with current conditions to reveal old solutions to today’s troubles. That is the thing about the simple observations shared in conversations – they often reveal insights to carry with us long beyond the moment and into future thought and action. It pays to listen more in conversations than to share.