Why I Called it Unfinished Conversations

By Sonia Rebecca Menezes

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Thank you for being here. After years of deliberation, I’ve decided to call my blog ‘Unfinished Conversations’.

Everything and Nothing.

That was the initial name of my blog and I liked it for two reasons:

Everything: The breadth of topics I found myself writing about seemed difficult to categorize. Was it pop culture? Psychology? Hot takes on life? Femininity? Motherhood? Why bother figuring it out, let’s call it ‘everything’. That oughta cover it.

Nothing: Because I never seemed to arrive at conclusions. I didn’t feel comfortable with them. I didn’t like having a call to action either because what action could I possibly endorse? I’m plagued by inertia myself. My ramblings would often go nowhere, but that didn’t feel like an outcome of my poor writing skills (okay, maybe a little).

Going nowhere felt like an integral part of the rambling, the destination even. The goal was to keep going until we knew for certain that we know nothing and certainty itself is a myth.

As you might have guessed, this title didn’t fly because I thought of everything and did nothing.

Next title: ‘Open Monologue’. I liked this one a lot!

It sounded intelligent. An intelligent friend of mine gave me the idea. He said that he enjoyed the open monologues I had with myself. That’s exactly what my writing was. Conversations I was having with myself.

But –
That’s not all I wanted my writing to be.

I don’t want to be the town crier, having conversations solely with myself. The most gratifying thing about writing has been the conversations I get to have because of it. The opinions and views that I hear in return are so much more valuable to me than my own ideas.

While I still think that ‘Open Monologue’ encompasses what I’m doing as a writer, I found a version that hit home.

Unfinished Conversations

Okay, right off the bat, I don’t like that this title is two long words one after the other. It made coming up with a logo really difficult, especially with crappy graphic design skills like mine. I’ve decided to let this glaring flaw slide, and stick with ‘Unfinished Conversations’ because of these reasons ⬇️

It leaves space

Unfinished conversations leave us with space to think, space to disagree, space to learn, and evolve. My drafts section has many, many unfinished blogs. Some because of a lack of time, but most of them just lay there because I know there’s more that needs to be said. I find it unsettling to hurry up and finish my thoughts on a subject with a neat little bow. It used to hold me back from hitting ‘publish’ because I’d always find new angles and ideas about the subject.

I’m not unique in that. It’s a natural part of the creative process. You simply allow your ideas to shape-shift and transform. The further in you go, the more you find yourself forging fresh and innovative connections between bits of information.

So instead of staying stuck, I’m more comfortable with leaving some space for new ideas.

If not in this conversation, hopefully in the next one.

It itches

Unfinished conversations leave you feeling just a little uncomfortable (or a lot). It doesn’t matter where you land at the end, you know that there’s further to go. They keep us engaged and curious about what could have been said, what was left unsaid, and what the outcome might have been. From the perspective of my blog, this translates to discussions that are left open-ended, inviting you to think and participate in the conversation.

Conversations are two-sided. So nothing here should be a monologue. If you finish reading something I’ve written and find yourself with an itch to either disagree, clarify, comment, or let me know what you think; I’ve done what I hoped to do.

It’s me, right now

I wrote the first line of this blog and heard my five-month old daughter crying in the next room. I then abandoned this blog for two business days. Most conversations I have are interrupted because she needs me. I have to drop out of interesting conversations and situations all the time to tend to my most important calling: Being her mum.

It’s likely that if you’ve started a conversation with me over the past few months, it’s left unfinished. It sucks, but it be like that sometimes. I liked how personal the title felt to me, because every conversation I have feels cut short these days. I’ve slowly broken up with the idea of closure, and settled for versions of it. I strive to get as close to it as possible, but sometimes conversations are just left –

And in spite of that, I’ll take a million incomplete conversations over a few perfectly complete ones because they help generate ideas. Mostly incomplete ideas, but here’s why that’s okay!

Exploring the beauty of incomplete ideas

Ideas evolve. They ought to. The evolution of ideas pushes critical thinking forward. It encourages us to question our assumptions and biases. As we explore different perspectives and challenge our thinking, perhaps we can find ourselves with a deeper understanding of the subject, or a more informed, empathetic, or even just a kinder perspective on an issue.

There are countless examples of how an idea evolved from just meh to wildly successful. My recent favorite one is Slack.

It’s the messaging platform and virtual office of most Fortune 500 companies today. But that’s wasn’t the original idea, far from it! The OG idea was a game called ‘Glitch’. A group of developers were building this game and decided to quickly hack together a communications tool to make their work easier and fun. They called it ‘Slack’ which stands for ‘Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge’. And now, it’s achieved what every startup wants to: it’s turned itself into a verb. If you’re interested in knowing more about it, here’s some extra reading.

But the point I’m making is that idea fragments are quite valuable too. You might realize that the incomplete idea in itself is very valuable, or it’s a stepping stone to a more valuable idea.

This is one way of looking at ideas: It’s called The Heroic Theory of Invention’. Sounds amazing, right? Here’s what it is: One genius person comes up with an idea that nobody else possibly could, seemingly out of thin air. They’re the hero. We studied about many historic inventors through lens of The Heroic Theory of Invention: Think Thomas Edison, or Alan Turing, or Nikola Tesla.

This theory establishes that our ideas are really personal and special to us, so when someone else has the same idea, we feel like they stole it from us. But this isn’t actually the right lens to view ideas at all (Thomas really isn’t gonna like this part)

Although we think our ideas are completely original and no one else could have thought of them, that’s not quite true. Most ideas are influenced by other ideas and build on them to create something new. So the Heroic Theory of Invention isn’t wrong, it’s incomplete.

The second way of thinking is called the theory of multiple discovery. This means that lots of people can have the same idea at the same time, even if they’ve never talked to each other before. It acknowledges the ways in which ideas cumulatively pile on top of one another like Jenga blocks but instead of coming crashing down like a mess for your clumsy friend Mavis to clean up, they turn into something even better. Like a wooden janitor that cleans up your entire house for you.

The start of a meaningful idea-generating conversation

If you’re reading this, THANK YOU for talking to me. Please know that in my mind, we’re having a meaningful conversation, exchanging incomplete ideas while sitting opposite each other at a coffee shop. Or beside each other on a nice corniche where it isn’t too windy but not humid and clammy either. My hair is flying in the right direction because I’m facing the wind, and your hair is flapping all over your face. It’s pretty distracting tbh. But it makes my day because YOU and your ideas and opinions make my day.

This would be a monologue without you. I’m deeply grateful that you’ve given me your time to have this chat. Wonderful ideas can emerge from the pointless fragments of our thoughts – let’s explore those ideas together.

Let’s continue the conversation?

• Do you feel like you’re hoarding a bunch of almost-groundbreaking ideas?
• Good ideas are pretty overrated – do you plan on executing some bad ideas any time soon?
• Pls invite me when you do, thanks.